Hi ODK members,

In researching vintage mowers some unusual machines crop-up from time to time.
Generally they are found by accident.

I was researching Suffolk 'Clipper' mowers when I found an article from the
Australian Town and Country Journal from 25 August, 1888.
That article described an "Improved Lawn Mower" [see below].

Further investigation revealed that it was an American "Clipper", made by the Clipper
Lawnmower Company of Dixon, Illinois - a town associated with its 'most famous son',
Ronald Reagan . . . [say no more]. [see http://www.discoverdixon.org/]

Here is a YouTube clip of one:-



[video]
[/video]

This would have been quite an inefficient machine as a push mower.
Sickle bar mowers really need horse power to make them work, and in history,
that is exactly what happened. The efficient reel mower ruled supreme over
domestic grasses . . . at least 'till the late 1940s.

Below is the 1888 article from an Australian newspaper.
[Linked Image]