HIS LIFE AND WORK 



so absorbed in new experiments that when the 

 harvest time arrived, his machines were not 

 completed. 



The new difficulty was not to get manufac- 

 turers to make Reapers, but to get them to make 

 good Reapers. What was to be done? The 

 thought of having defective Reapers scattered 

 among the farmers was intolerable to Cyrus 

 McCormick. He pondered deeply over the 

 whole situation. He considered the fact that 

 the supremacy in wheat was slowly passing 

 from Virginia to Ohio. He took note of the 

 railroads that were creeping westward. He 

 remembered the limitless prairies, far out in the 

 sunset country, that were still uncultivated. 

 Plainly, he must make Reapers in a factory of 

 his own, so as to have them made well, and he 

 must locate that factory as near as possible to 

 the prairies, at some point along the Great Lakes. 

 With the most painstaking diligence he studied 

 the map and finally he put his finger upon a 

 town a small new town, which bore the 

 strange name of Chicago. 



[67] 



