I 



CHAPTER IV 



SIXTEEN YEARS OF PIONEERING 

 N 1831 Cyrus McCormick had his Reaper, 

 but the great world knew nothing of it. 

 None of the 850 papers that were being printed 

 at this time in the United States had given the 

 notice of its birth. There was the young in- 

 ventor, with the one machine that the human 

 race most needed, in a remote cleft of the Vir- 

 ginian mountains, four days' journey from Rich- 

 mond, and wholly without any experience or 

 money or influence that would enable him to 

 announce what he had done. 



He had such a problem to solve as no inventor 

 of to-day or to-morrow can have. He was not 

 living, as we are, in an age of faith and optimism 

 when every new invention is welcomed with 

 a shout of joy. He confronted a sceptical and 

 slow-moving little world, so different from that 

 of to-day that it requires a few lines of portrayal. 

 In general, it was a non-inventive and hand- 

 labor world. There were few factories, except 



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