Today in 1963, US Patent 3079925 A was issued, an invention of Albert Edward Brookes, for his “Machine for Plucking Hops or Like Plants.” There’s no Abstract, but the description claims that the “The object of this invention is to provide a convenient machine more particularly for plucking hop flowers from their bines, but also usable for analogous purposes, such, for example, as the plucking of beans from their bines, or for separating seeds from herbs and the like.” The description continues:
A machine according to the invention comprises in combination a plurality of endless conveyor chains each incorporating a plurality of spaced and outwardly extending conveyor fingers, means supporting complementary runs of the plurality of conveyor chains for traverse through substantially straight parallel paths, a plurality of fixed parallel channels within which the outer ends of the conveyor fingers are adapted to engage during movement along said substantially straight paths, and a plurality of endless plucking chains each having a substantially straight run extending parallel to the straight runs of the conveyor chains, said plucking chains having outwardly extending plucking fingers adapted to pass between the conveyor fingers, and being adapted to be driven at a speed such that the plucking fingers on the straight run will move in the same direction as, but at a greater speed than the conveyor fingers.
