Mankind has built some amazing devices and the invention of the wheel certainly expanded the possibilities.
Recently I had the good fortune of visiting the Da Vinci Machines travelling show, and that man had a restless mind for sure!

In the past 150 years a plethora of devices have been invented to ease labour intensive tasks. Prior to industrialisation , the majority of folk
worked on or near "the land" , and indeed in the pioneering days of Australia and Tasmania there was a huge overseas demand for farm
produce grown in the northern hemisphere "off season".

In Tasmania there was a thriving orchard industry , in particular apples were grown and exported in enormous quantities. The halcyon years were the 1930s-60s.
In the 70s the industry declined like so many , but this has been replaced by other "cash crops" , in particular cherries , apricots and grapes (wine).

All over the world machines of all descriptions either lie rotting in fields , gathering dust in barns or lovingly restored in sterile museums.

Here is an example of a chaff cutting machine , probably 100 years old. This now lies in a former hop farm, now a cafe/vineyard about 6 minutes drive from my house http://www.brookfieldvineyard.com/layout.php?section_id=7. It is a New Zealand made machine from the company of Andrews & Beaven , and a "14 incher" to boot - whatever  that is. http://www.steel-wheels.net/andrews.html

What a magnificent beast! Just in front of the rear wheel there is a chute on hinges into which wheat sheaves were loaded onto a conveyor belt. This led to a  crushing roller and the wheat seeds fell into a hopper whilst the chaff (stems) were  transported uphill and over the back of the machine to a big pile of hay.