A HUNDRED YEARS' PROGRESS. 287 



gained a wide and permanent reputation. Many patents had been issued 

 in this country previously, the first having been as early as 1803, but they 

 had not proved successful. Hussey's machine was introduced into New 

 York and Illinois in 183-4, into Missouri in 1835, into Pennsylvania in 1837, 

 and in the next year the inventor established himself in Baltimore, 

 McCormick'S machine had been worked as early as 1831, but it was 

 afterwards greatlj' improved, and became a source of an immense fortune 

 to the inventor. He took out a second patent in 1815, fifteen other 

 machines having been patented after the date of his first papers, including 

 that of the Ketchum, in 1841, which gained a wide reputation. 



The first trial of reapers, partaking of a national character, was held 

 under the auspices of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture in 1852, 

 when twelve diftereut machines and several different mowers were en- 

 tered for competition. There was no striking superiority, according to 

 the report of the judges, in any of the machines. A trial had been 

 held at the show of the New York State Agricultural Society, at Buf- 

 falo, in 1818, but the large body of farmers who had witnessed it w^erc 

 not prepared to admit that the work of the machines Avas good enough 

 to be tolerated in comparison with the hand-scythe. Some thought 

 they might possibly work in straight, coarse grass, but in finer grasses 

 they were sure to clog. The same society instituted a trial of reapers 

 and mowers at Geneva in 1852, when nine machines competed as reapers 

 and seven as mowers. Only two or three of the latter were capable of 

 equaling the common scythe in the quality of work they did, and not 

 one of them all, when brought to a stand in the grass, could start again 

 without backing to get up speed. All the machines had a heavy side- 

 draught, some of them to such an extent as to wear seriously on the 

 team. None of them could turn about readily within a reasonable 

 space, and all w^ere liable to tear up the sward in the operation. The 

 old Manning, patented in 1831, anil the Ketchum machines were the 

 only ones that were capable of doing work that w^as at all satisfactory. 

 One or two of the reapers in this trial did fair work, and the judges de- 

 cided that, in comparison with the hand-cradle, they showed a saving 

 of 88| cents per acre. Here was some gain certainly, a little positive 

 advance, but still most of the reapers, as well as the mowers, did very 

 inferior work. The draught in them all was very heavy, while some of 

 the best of them had a side-draught that was destructive to the team. 



The inventive genius of the country was stimulated by these trials to 

 an extraordinary degree of activity. Patents began to multiply rapidly. 

 Local trials took jilace every year in various parts of the country to test 

 tiie merits of the several machines. The great International Exposition 

 at Paris in 1855 w'as an occasion not to be overlooked by an enter- 

 prising inventor, and the American machines, imperfect as they were at 

 that time, were brought to trial there in competition with the world. 

 The scene of this trial was on a field of oats about forty miles from 

 Paris, each machine having about an acre to cut. Three machines were 

 entered for the first trial, one American, one Euglish, and a third from 

 Algiers, all at the same time raking as well as cutting. The American 

 machine did its work in twenty-two minutes, the English in sixty-six, 

 and the Algerian in seventy-two. 



At a subsequent trial on the same piece, three other machines were 

 entered, of American, English, and Erench manufacture, when the 

 American machine did its work in twenty-two minutes, while the two 

 others failed. " This successful competitor on this occasion," says a 

 Erench journal, '• did its work in the most exquisite manner, not leaving 

 a single stalk ungathered, and it discharged the grain in the most per- 



