HIS LIFE AND WORK 



forward to buy. The four men who had given 

 testimonials had only seen the Reaper at work. 

 They were not purchasers. McCormick was "a 

 voice crying in the wilderness" for nine years 

 before he found a farmer who had the money 

 and the courage to buy one of his Reapers. 



After living for more than a year on his farm, 

 McCormick saw that as a means of raising 

 money it was a failure. It had given him a most 

 valuable period of preparatory solitude, but it 

 had not helped him to launch the Reaper; so 

 he looked about him for some enterprise that 

 would yield a larger profit. There was a large 

 deposit of iron ore near by, and he resolved to 

 build a furnace and make iron. Iron was the 

 most expensive item in the making of a reaper. 

 At that time it was $50.00 a ton two and a 

 half cents a pound. So as he had been unable 

 to establish the Reaper business with a farm, 

 he now set out to do it with a furnace. He per- 

 suaded his father and the school teacher to be- 

 come his partners; and they built the furnace 

 and were making their first iron in 1835 the 



