HIS LIFE AND WORK 



Such were the most notable men who, to- 

 gether with McCormick and Deering, began 

 in 1880 or soon afterwards to manufacture the 

 new knot-tying device that had become neces- 

 sary to the Reaper. As for Cyrus H. McCor- 

 mick himself, he lived to see it the universal 

 grain-cutter of all civilized countries. He lived 

 to see it perfected into one of the most astonish- 

 ing mechanisms known to man an almost 

 rational machine that cuts the grain, carries it 

 on a canvas escalator up to steel hands that 

 shape it into bundles, tie a cord around it as 

 neatly as could be done by a sailor, and cut the 

 cord ; after which the bound sheaf is pushed into 

 a basket and held until five of them have been 

 collected, whereupon they are dropped carefully 

 upon the ground. 



Since 1884 there has been no essential change 

 in the fashion of the self-binder. It is the same 

 to-day as when McCormick was alive. In the 

 span of his single life the Reaper was born and 

 grew to its full maturity. He saw its Alpha and 

 its Omega. Best of all, he saw not only its 

 humble arrival, in a remote Virginia settlement, 



[121] 



