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History of Lawnmowers
from: Lawnmowers have made gardening easier and efficiently since this became a more effective alternative to scythe. This machine has converted the manual to automatic task of cutting the grass evenly. But how this machine came about?Lawnmowers have long existed since the late 19th century. The first prototype was invented by an English engineer, named Edwin Beard Budding in 1827. The machine has been primarily designed to cut lawn on sports grounds and expensive gardens as an excellent alternative to scythe. Its patent was approved on October 25, 1830.
Ten years after its invention, further innovations were made and created a machine that could be worked by horse power and sixty years before steam-powered lawn mower was built.
By 1862, Ferrabee’s company (who acquired the right to manufacture, in an agreement with Budding) were selling eight models and produced some 5,000 units until the production came to a halt the following year.
James Sumner of Lancashire patented the first steam-powered lawn mower in 1893. His machine burned petrol and/or paraffin oil (kerosene) as a fuel. After numerous advances, the machines were sold by the Stott Fertilizer and Insecticide Company of Manchester and later, the Sumner's took over sales. The company they controlled was called the Leyland Steam Motor Company.
Numerous manufacturers entered the field with gasoline-driven mowers after the turn of the century. The first grass boxes were flat trays but took their present shape in the 1860s. The roller-drive lawn mower has changed very little since around 1930. Gang mowers, those with multiple sets of blades, were built in the United States in 1919 by a Mister Worthington. His company was taken over by the Jacobsen Corporation but his name is still cast on the frames of their gang units.
Around 1900, one of the best known English machines was the Ransomes' Automaton, available in chain- or gear-driven models. JP Engineering of Leicester, founded after World War I, produced a range of very popular chain driven mowers. About this time, an operator could ride behind animals that pulled the large machines. These were the first riding mowers.
An early Victa rotary mower - National Museum Rotary mowers were not developed until engines were small enough and powerful enough to run the blades at a high speed. In the 1930s, Power Specialties Ltd. introduced a gasoline-powered rotary mower. One company that produced rotary mowers commercially was the Australian Victa company, starting in 1947. Early in the 1930s, experiments in design of rotary mowing equipment were conducted by a farmer in the Midwest region of the United States, by the name of C.C Stacy. His concept was the use of a toothed circular saw blade mounted horizontally on a vertical shaft, which would be suspended at a height of approximately 2" and moved across a lawn to cut grass and other lawn vegetation at a uniform height. The power for his experimental mower was an electric motor.
The success of Stacy's design was limited by 2 factors: the relatively small diameter of the saw blades he used for his experiments, which were about 8"; and the fact that toothed circular saw blades are not an ideal tool for cutting free-standing grass and other plants. Stacy did not come up with any idea for a cutter similar to modern rotary mower straight blades, and soon dropped his experiments with rotary mowing. He never submitted any of his ideas for patent, although drawings of his ideas still exist and are in the possession of family members. Late in life, Stacy, deceased in 1993, asserted that his ideas for rotary mowing equipment originated with him, and he had never seen or heard of any mowing equipment other than cylinder or reel type mowers prior to formulating his ideas. He lamented jokingly that if he had pursued and patented the concept, his family name might have become as well known as Jacobson, that of a prominent mower manufacturer in the first half of the 20th century.
The invention of fuel-powered motors gave rise to motorized lawnmowers sometime in the mid to late 19th century to the early part of the 20th century. Then there was the hover mower in the 1960s. This type of mower literally floated above the ground and this design enabled them to be used to cut taller grasses and even small shrubs. Finally, there are the robotic mowers. Although they still need a little help from humans in order to operate, much of their work is automated which saves people a lot of time.
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