Page 41 - All About History - Issue 54-17

Through History

SECATEURS CIRCA 1819 Henry Ford in 1908

early tractors
The 16th and 17th centuries saw an increased sitting on one of his
interest in gardening, and more specialised tools
began to appear, such as shears to clip fruit trees
and hedges into shape. However, it was not until
the 19th century that small pruning shears, or
secateurs, were introduced. Until then, scissors
and knives had been used to snip
away at foliage and small ll
James branches. Secateurs
Small were invented by
SCOTTISH 1740-93
Born in Scotland, James Small used Antoine François
mathematical principles to invent the Bertrand de
modern swing-plough cast from iron. Molleville (1744-
Generally known as the Scots plough, 1818), a French
it was much better and more efficient
than its wooden predecessor. Small nobleman, and
never patented his invention, which were stronger and
An advertisement for secateurs has led some to argue that he more efficient.
from 1913. They were considered wanted it to be free for all
particularly suitable for ladies to use.
LAWNMOWER 1830 TRACTOR CIRCA 1917
The first lawnmower patent was granted in 1830 to Edwin Beard The first tractors were steam-powered ploughs and
Budding, an engineer from Gloucestershire. He was said to appeared in Britain in the 1860s, later evolving into
petrol-driven machines. However, it was Henry Ford
have been working in a textile mill where machines were
used to trim cloth and he adapted the idea to cut grass just who built the most popular early mass-produced
when public parks and gardens were proliferating. Some The world’s first tractor, creating the Fordson in 1917, which was
of his first mowers were sold to Regent’s mechanical lawn mower exported all over the world. It was followed in 1939
was built by JR and A
Park Zoological Gardens in London. Ransomes of Ipswich, by the famous Ford-Ferguson tractor, the result of
They were pushed by based on Budding’s design a collaboration between Ford and Irishman Harry
hand and had gear Ferguson, who had come up with a way of rigidly
wheels. hitching a plough to a tractor. Their 9N tractor
William became the industry standard — Ford once
Robinson declared their only competition “was the horse”.
ENGLISH 1838-1935
William Robinson was a widely read
gardening writer of the Victorian era
and did much to popularise the use Cucumbers would grow inside the
of secateurs. He wrote about them in glass straightener so that they
The Parks, Promenades And Gardens couldn’t form a natural curve
Of Paris (1869), referring to them
as “garden cutlery” and “an
instrument that every gardener
should possess himself
of at once”.

“Some of his first mowers were
sold to Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens”

COMBINE HARVESTER A modern John Deere CUCUMBER STRAIGHTENER

1826 combine and tractor at work CIRCA 1845
in the English countryside
The earliest combine harvesters, which chopped, The 19th century saw an extraordinary
proliferation of specialised tools and equipment
threshed and sorted grain crops, date back to the late
for cultivation as owners of grand country
19th century and were pulled by horses, then steam
engines and later tractors. Since the 1990s, combines houses competed with one another to produce
have increasingly employed satellite navigation the finest hot-house produce and unusual fruits
for ‘precision farming’. They can be controlled and vegetables. The great railway engineer
automatically and set such an accurate path across George Stephenson (1781-1848), creator of
a field that they can be driven in darkness. GPS the famed Rocket locomotive, was a keen
gives the farmer precise information on location and gentleman gardener. He patented a cucumber
driving speed and helps them map the most fertile straightener and had the glass cylinders made
parts of a field so that chemical fertilisers can be at his Newcastle steam engine factory. © Alamy, Getty Images
carefully targeted.
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