Since humans started farming, they have sought to ease the task of planting and harvesting their crops. In his Naturalis historica, Gaius Plinius (AD 23–79) described a reaping machine that broke off...

Since humans started farming, they have sought to ease the task of planting and harvesting their crops. In his Naturalis historica, Gaius Plinius (AD 23–79) described a reaping machine that broke off the ears of corn and accumulated them in a box. In 1799, the first verifiable patent for a reaping machine was granted to the English inventor Joseph Boyce. In 1831, Cyrus Hall McCormick introduced the world’s first corn reaper under the name of the “Virginia Reaper.” The Virginia Reaper was powered by a horse. Over time, other companies introduced combine harvesters that were self-propelled and powered by a combustion engine. Harvesters today allow a farmer to harvest large cornfields in the comfort of airconditioned cabs! After years of planting corn the way Squanto had taught the settlers, help arrived for American farmers when hand planters were introduced during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some of these devices allowed farmers to plant two acres per day instead of the single acre possible with hand-planting. Today, planters can seed multiple rows while traveling at 10 miles per hour. The evolution of both planters and harvesters has certainly made the farmer much more effective.