HIS LIFE AND WORK 



him to me by the first train that comes back to 

 Chicago." 



The next day Withington was brought back 

 and treated with the utmost courtesy. Mc- 

 Cormick studied his invention and found it to 

 be a most remarkable mechanism. Two steel 

 arms caught each bundle of grain, whirled a 

 wire tightly around it, fastened the two ends 

 together with a twist, cut it loose and tossed it 

 to the ground. This self-binder was perfect 

 in all its details as neat and effective a ma- 

 chine as could be imagined. McCormick was 

 delighted. At last, here was a machine that 

 would abolish the binding of grain by hand. 



A bargain was made with Withington on the 

 spot; and the following July a self-binder was 

 tried on the Sherwood farm, near Elgin, Illinois. 

 It cut fifty acres of wheat and bound every 

 bundle without a slip. From this time on- 

 wards no one was needed but a man, a boy, a 

 girl, anybody, who could hold the reins and 

 drive a team of horses. Of the ten or twelve 

 sweating drudges who toiled in the harvest- 

 field, all were now to be set free the sicklers, 



[in] 



