CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 



for the first seventy-five years of its life. It 

 could not develop beyond the struggle for food. 

 It was chained to the bread-line. It could not 

 feed itself. Not even nine-tenths of its people 

 could produce enough grain to satisfy its hun- 

 ger. Again and again, until 1858, wheat had 

 to be imported by this nation of farmers. So, 

 as we now look back over those basic years, 

 from the summit of the twentieth century, we 

 can see how timely an event it was that in the 

 dark year 1809 the inventor of the Reaper was 

 born. 



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