Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work

ut out to provide a window. Here the boy Cyrus sat on a slab bench and studied five books as though they were the only bo

map of the world, showing the two hemispheres side by side. First he had drawn it in ink upon paper, then pasted the paper upon linen, and hung it upon two varnished rollers. This map, which is still preserved, r

grain under a hot summer sun was of all farming drudgeries the severest. Both his back and his brain rebelled against it. One thing at least he c

on of surveying, and made a quadrant for his own use. This is still preserved, and bears witness to his good workmanship. From this time until his twenty-second year, there is nothing of exceptional interest recorded of him. He had grown to be a t

tter written from Kentucky to a cousin, Adam McChesney, in 1831, he says: "Mr. Hart has two fine daughters, r

HURCH, ROCKBRIDG

fantastic machine, pushed from behind by two horses. A row of short curved sickles were fastened to upright posts, and the grain was whirled against them by revolving rods. It was highly ingenio

workshop. "He allowed no one to see what he was doing, except his sons," said Davis McCormick, who is now the only living person in the neighborhood with a memory that extends back to that early period. "Yes," said this lone octogenarian, "Robert McCormick was a g

rain fairly well, but flung it in a tangled heap. As much as this had been done before by other machines, and it was not enough. To cut the grain was only one

R. McCORMICK GIVING HIS OWN ACC

elf, and which has not hitherto been made public, gives a complete description of the process of thought by which he became the inventor of the first practical Reaper. This account, it may be said in explanation, was written by Mr. McCormick shortly before the Chicago fire of 1871. It was to be published at that time, and was in type when the fire c

ion could not succeed, laid aside and abandoned the further prosecution of his idea."

en or heard of any Reaper experiments except those of his father; but he believed he saw a bett

ed mass. He faced the problem worst end first. The Reaper that would cut such grain, he believed, must first separate the grain that is to be cut from the grain that is le

ght was to cut the grain with a whirling wheel-knife, but this plan presented too many new difficulties. Suddenly the idea came to him-why not have a straight blade, with a back and forward motion of its own? This was the birth-idea of the reciprocating

his by placing a row of fingers at the edge of the blade. These fingers projected a few inches, in such a way that the grain was caught and held in posit

eel, such as fishermen use for the drying of their nets. Several of the abortive Reapers that had been tried elsewhere had

of putting the shafts on the outside, or stubble side, of the Reaper, making it a side-draught, instead of a "push" machine. And the seventh and final factor was the building of the whole Reaper upon one

TICAL REAP

Hall McCormick on Walnut

e little log workshop became the basic type of a wholly new machine. It has never been displaced. Since then there have been 12,000 patents issued for reaper and mower inventions; but not one of them has overthrown the type of the firs

put a horse between the shafts of his Reaper, and drove against the yellow grain. The reel revolved and swept the gentle wheat downwards upon the knife. Click! Click! Click! The white steel blade shot back and forth. The grain was cut. It fell upon the platform in a shimmering golden swath. From

centre of the field is a single tree, a wide-branched white oak, which was probably born before the first colonists arrived at Jamestown. And in the background, not more than two miles distant, rise the tall an

rning and destroying, and so close to the McCormick homestead that the blue uniforms could be seen from its front windows. Doubtless, when farmers have time to take a proper pride in the history of their own profession, they will visit the McCormick farm as a spot of his

e cut six acres of oats in an afternoon, a feat which was attested in court in 1848 by his brothers William and Leander, and also by three of the villagers, John Steele, Eliza Steele, and Dr. N. M. Hitt. Such a thing a

tion near the little town of Lexington, which lay eighteen miles south of the farm. Fully one hundred people were present-several pol

lse that human eyes had ever seen, was to prove a grotesque failure. The field was hilly, and the

ed. "Stop your horses. You are

McCORMICK REAPER WAS TRIED,

s a humbug," said one. "Give me the old cradle yet, boys," said another. These men were hardened and bent and calloused with the drudgery of harvesting. They worked twelve and fourteen ho

appearance, who had been watching the floundering o

"That field of wheat on the other side of the fence

is offer was at once accepted by Cyrus McCormick, and as the second field was fairly level, he laid low six acres of wheat before

haw of the Lexington Female Academy, who finally announced in a loud and emphatic voice, "This-machine-is worth-a hundred-thousand-dollars." This praise, from "a scholar and a gentleman," as McC

er operate were Colonel James McDowell, Colonel John Bowyer, Colonel Samuel Reed, Colonel A. T. Barclay, Dr. Taylor, William Taylor, John Ruff, John W. Houghawout, John Steele, James Moore, and Andrew Wallace. There was an old lady, also, in 1885, Miss Polly Carson, who told how she had seen the Reaper hauled alo

achines of varying inefficiency; but there was not one of these which could have been improved into the proper shape. Without any exception, the rival manufacturers who rose up in

t have been fairly useful. They assuredly might have succeeded if grain grew in a parlor. But to cut actual grain in actual fields was another matter, and quite beyond their power. None of them, apparently, knew the fundamental

OP IN WHICH C. H. McCORMI

s to be pushed by horses and steered by a rudder that in rough ground would jerk a man's arm out of joint. A second of these inventors was a sailor, who experimented with a few stalks of straight grain stuck in gimlet holes in his workshop floor. A third was an actor, who had

of most farmers of that time when he said that "an insurmountable difficulty will sometimes be found to the use of reaping-machines in the state of the growing c

He was primarily a farmer. He knew what wheat was and how it grew. And his first aim in making a reaper was not to produ

tional mowers or reapers that were fairly good as far as they went, and that most of them invented nothing that beca

om McCormick's reputation as an inventor. This they did in a wholly impersonal manner, of course, so that they should not be obliged

e have seen, that he was schooled as a boy into an inventive habit of mind; and that before his invention of the Reaper, he had devised a new grain-cradle, a hillside plow, and a self-sharpening plow. There is abundant corroborative evidence in the letters which he wrote to his father and brothers, instructing them to "make the divider and wheel post longer,"

mick's place as an inventor, Mr. Whiteley said: "McCormick invented the divider and the practical reel; and he was the first man to make the Reaper a success in the field." Mr. Marsh said: "He was a meritorious inventor, although he combined the id

heroic innovators who awaken the world's brain upon a new line of thought. Then come the pioneers who solve certain parts of the problem and make suggestions that are of practical value. And then, in the fulness of time, c

is line, with scarcely a break, until his death; and the manufacturing plant that he founded is to-day the largest of its kind. Thus, it is no more than an exact statement of the truth to