Historical information

FROM - OUGH Brothers of Wombelano
DONATED BY - Rowen BOEHMITE
Hugh Victor McKAY (1865–1926) was an Australian industrialist renowned for inventing the Sunshine Harvester, a machine that revolutionized wheat harvesting by combining stripping, threshing, winnowing, screening, and bagging of grain crops such as wheat or oats into a single process.
In 1883, McKAY, along with his father and brother, constructed a prototype stripper-harvester using parts from other machines and materials found on their family farm. This innovation led to the patenting of the Sunshine Harvester on 24 March 1885.
A harvester is a type of agricultural machine or manual tool used to gather mature crops from the fields. It’s a critical component of the harvesting process and comes in various forms depending on the crop, the scale of farming, and the level of mechanization.
A harvester is designed to cut or strip the crop (e.g., grains, vegetables, fruit) and separate the usable product (e.g., seeds, heads, fruits) from the rest of the plant then gather or collect the product into containers, bags, or bins. In some modern cases, also clean, sort, and store the crop onboard.