Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work

from 1845 to 1860-it had remained unchanged except that seats had been added for the raker and the driver. It did no more than cut the grain and leave it on the ground in loose bundles. It had abolis

as no opposition and no ridicule. To cut grain by horse-power had become, of course, the only proper way of cutting it. As many as 20,000 Reapers of all kinds were made

bought a McCormick Reaper, had it placed outside his window, and actually devised an attachment to it which automatically raked off the cut grain in bundles. It was a grotesque contrivance. The farme

grain it made such a clatter that the horses ran away. It was certainly a terrifying sight as it rattled through the wheat, with its long, rake-fingered arms flying and hurling the cut grain in the wildest disorder. It was as good as a chariot race in a circus to the crowd of farmers, who had

gathered up the bundles of cut grain, and, making a crude rope of the grain itself, bound it tightly around the middle, making what was called a sheaf. This was hard, back-breaking work, intolerable when the sun was hot, except to men of the strongest physique. It required not st

wo. It was the missing link. It appeared that an inventor named Mann had taken a McCormick Reaper and built a moving platform upon it, in such a way that the grain was car

y can't we put a foot-board on the machine, for two of us to s

hance to work twice as fast. It compelled him to be quick. It saved him the trouble of walking from bundle to bundle. It enabled him to stand erect.

e McCormick home in Chicago, and rang the bell. He asked to see Mr. McCormick, and was shown in

" Now, it so happened that McCormick had been kept awake nearly the whole of the previous night by a stubborn business problem. He could scarcely

to Wisconsin. For a few seconds McCormick was uncertain as to whether his visitor had been a reality or a dream. Then he awoke with a start into instant action. A great opportunity had come to him and he had let

nd a man named Withington, and bring him to me

aught each bundle of grain, whirled a wire tightly around it, fastened the two ends together with a twist, cut it loose and tossed it to the ground. This self-binder was perfe

From this time onwards no one was needed but a man, a boy, a girl, anybody, who could hold the reins and drive a team of horses. Of the ten or twelve sweating drudges who toiled in the harvest-field, all we

said an Illinois farmer. "But to-day our hired girl climbs upo

he supervision of Sylvanus D. Locke, who had been a co-worker with Withington. McCormick had given Wood his start, as early as 1853, by selling him a license to make Reapers; and Wood, by his high persona

MICK SELF-RAKE

pert. These cars, during the harvest season, were attached to ordinary freight trains; and whenever the train came to a busy wheat-field it was stopped for an hour or more, the self-binder was rushed from th

k invented his Reaper, he was trained by his father to be a watchmaker. At fifteen, to earn some pocket-money, he went into the harvest field to bind grain. He was not robust, and the hard, stooping labor un

called it. As it happened, the whole southern region of Wisconsin was being stirred up at that time by the speeches of an inventive Madison editor, who went by the name of "Pump" Carpenter. Carpenter's hobby was that the binding of grain must be done by machinery. He was eloquent and popular, and his arguments were subs

om the region south of Madison, which had been so aroused by the eloquence of "Pump" Carpenter. Besides C. B. Withington, there were Sylvanus D. Locke, als

be the best that human ingenuity could devise. Then, like a bolt of lightning from a blue sky, came the news that William Deering had made and sold 3,000 twine self-binders, and that the farmers had all at once become prejudiced against the use of wire. Wire,

ester industry shows that he had become an active partner of E. H. Gammon in 1872. Gammon, who had formerly been a Methodist preacher in Maine, had started as an agent for Seymour and Morgan of Brockport, which firm had been licensed by McCormick in 1845. Deer

-one of those who had been lured into the quest of a self-binder by the insistence of "Pump" Carpenter. Gorham's most valuable contribution was a self-sizing device, by which all bound sheaves were made to be the same size. By the time that th

e number of manufacturers. There were a hundred or more until the appearance of the twine binder: and all but twenty-two fell out of the race. Some of these were driven out by the expensive war of patents that now ensued.

gh he was at this time over seventy years of age, and sorely crippled by rheumatism, he straightway entered into a trade war with Deering, which was not ended until 1902. Many of the older workmen who are now employed in the McCormick works can remember the stress and str

wing machine syndicate in 1861. Emerson, Seymour, and Morgan had decided not to make self-binders. Jerome Fassler, of Springfield, Ohio, took his fortune of two mi

tates and Europe. Lewis Miller, who deserves most credit as the creator of the mower, continued to do business at Akron. Mr. Miller was almost equally famous as a Methodist and the originator of the Chautauqua idea. At Auburn, N. Y., David M. Osborne was fighting manfully to keep in the race. He had built seven Reapers as early as 1856; and had made many friends by his ability and uprightness. At Hoosick Falls, N. Y., there was Walter A. Wood-a most competent and enterpris

LL McCOR

niversal grain-cutter of all civilized countries. He lived to see it perfected into one of the most astonishing mechanisms known to man-an almost rational machine that cuts the grain, carries it on a canvas escalator up to steel hands that shape i

born and grew to its full maturity. He saw its Alpha and its Omega. Best of all, he saw not only its humble arrival, in a remote Virginia settlement, but, as we shall see, he s