Europe gazed in astonishment at a new spectacle in history; that of a nation fighting the greatest war which had been known up to that time, employing the greater part of her young and vigorous men in the armies, and yet growing infinitely richer in the process.

The Civil War produced many new implements of warfare, such as the machine gun and the revolving turret for battleships, but, so far as determining the result was concerned, perhaps the most important was the reaper.
Extensive as the use of agricultural machinery became in the Civil War, that period only faintly foreshadowed the development that has taken place since.

The American farm is today like a huge factory; the use of the hands has almost entirely disappeared; there are only a few operations of husbandry that are not performed automatically.

In Civil War days the reaper merely cut the grain; now machinery rakes it up and binds it into sheaves and threshes it.

Similar mechanisms bind corn and rice.