CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 



for the weaving of cotton and woollen cloth. 

 There was no sewing-machine, nor Bessemer 

 converter, nor Hoe press, nor telegraph, nor 

 photography. It was still the age of the tallow 

 candle and stage-coach and tinder-box. Prac- 

 tically no such thing was known as farm machin- 

 ery. Jethro Wood had invented his iron plow, 

 but he was at this time dying in poverty, never 

 having been able to persuade farmers to abandon 

 their plows of wood. As for steel plows, no 

 one in any country had conceived of such a 

 thing. James Oliver was a bare-footed school- 

 boy in Scotland and John Deere was a young 

 blacksmith in Vermont. Plows were pulled 

 by oxen and horses, not by slaves, as in certain 

 regions of Asia; but almost every other sort of 

 farm work was done by hand. 



Railways were few and of little account. 

 Eighty-two miles of flimsy track had been built 

 in the United States; the Baltimore and Ohio 

 was making a solemn experiment with loco- 

 motives, horses, and sails, to ascertain which 

 one of these three was the best method of propul- 

 sion. The first really successful American loco- 



[49]- 



