About 1858 two farmers named Marsh, who lived near De Kalb, Illinois, solved this problem.

They attached to their McCormick reaper a moving platform upon which the cut grain was deposited.

A footboard was fixed to the machine upon which two men stood.

As the grain came upon this moving platform these men seized it, bound it into sheaves, and threw it upon the field.

Simple as this procedure seemed it really worked a revolution in agriculture; for the first time since the pronouncement of the primal curse, the farmer abandoned his hunchback attitude and did his work standing erect.