John Francis Appleby (1840–1917) was an American inventor who developed a knotting device to bind grain bundles with twine. It became the foundation for all farm grain binding machinery and was used extensively by all the major manufacturers of large grain harvesting machines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Appleby's knotting device was a major landmark in the mechanization of agriculture and aided the development of the western wheat fields of the United States.