HIS LIFE AND WORK 



bought," said Mr. Wallace, "was a McCormick 

 machine that had an 'Iron Man' on it. The 

 first day that it was driven into the grain it 

 made such a clatter that the horses ran away. 

 It was certainly a terrifying sight as it rattled 

 through the wheat, with its long, rake-fingered 

 arms flying and hurling the cut grain in the 

 wildest disorder. It was as good as a chariot 

 race in a circus to the crowd of farmers, w T ho had 

 come to see how the new machine would operate. 

 The next day my father tried again. There 

 had been rain during the night, and the heavy 

 machine stuck fast in the mud. It had cost 

 $300, but my father took the 'Iron Man' off, 

 and during the remainder of that harvest we 

 raked off the grain by hand." 



A great variety of self-rake Reapers soon 

 appeared, and after 1860 the farmers would buy 

 no other kind. Thus a part of the problem had 

 been solved. The raker was abolished. There 

 now remained the much more difficult work of 

 supplanting the binder the man, or some- 

 times woman, who gathered up the bundles of 

 cut grain, and, making a crude rope of the grain 



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