HIS LIFE AND WORK 



to reach, as it is now possible to lunch to-day 

 in either Chicago or New York and to-morrow 

 in the same comfortable red brick farm-house 

 that sheltered the McCormicks in 1831. 



Several days after the advent of the Reaper 

 on the home farm, Cyrus McCormick had im- 

 proved its reel and divider, and was ready for a 

 public exhibition at the near-by village of Steele's 

 Tavern. Here, with two horses, he cut six acres 

 of oats in an afternoon, a feat which was at- 

 tested 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 at that time was incredible. It was 

 equal to the work of six laborers with scythes, 

 or twenty-four peasants with sickles. It was 

 as marvellous as though a man should walk 

 down the street carrying a dray-horse on his 

 back. 



The next year, 1832, Cyrus McCormick came 

 out with his Reaper into what seemed to him 

 " the wide, wide world." He gave a public exhi- 

 bition near the little town of Lexington, which 

 lay eighteen miles south of the farm. Fully one 



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