complex farm machine that both cuts and threshes grain. An early primitive combine was a horse-drawn “combination harvester–thresher” introduced in Michigan in 1836 and later used in California. Combines were not generally adopted until the 1930s, when tractor-drawn models became available. Self-propelled machines, capable of cutting swaths 8 to 18 feet (2.5 to 5.5 m) wide, appeared a decade later. Originally designed to harvest wheat, they came to be used to harvest many other crops.

In design, the combine is essentially a binder-type cutting device that delivers the grain to a threshing machine modified to work as it moves across the field. The cutting–gathering component, designed to take the grain with a minimum of straw, is sometimes called the header. A threshing cylinder rubs grain out of the heads against a concave surface. Some grain and chaff go with the straw to the straw deck, on which grain is shaken out and delivered to the cleaning shoe. Some of the grain and chaff goes directly to the cleaning shoe, on which sieves and a blast of air are used to separate and clean the grain. After passing through the air blast, the grain drops into a clean-grain auger that conveys it to an elevator and into a storage tank. Straw drops out of the back of the combine in a windrow for baling or is scattered over the ground by a fanlike spreader. Some combines for use on steeply rolling land have a body supported in a frame by hydraulic cylinders that automatically adjust to keep the body level.