B 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE CONQUEST OF EUROPE 

 Y 1850 Cyrus H. McCormick was ready for 

 new business. He now had a factory of his 

 own, and the assistance of his brothers, William 

 and Leander. He had a score of busy agents 

 and a few thousand dollars in the bank. He 

 had fought down the ridicule of the farm-hands. 

 It was only six years since he had set out from 

 his Virginian farm with $300 in his belt and the 

 Idea of the Reaper in his brain; but in those 

 six years he had worked mightily and succeeded. 

 His Reapers were now clicking merrily in more 

 than three thousand American wheat-fields. 

 So, it was a natural thing that in the first flush 

 of victory, he should look across the sea for 

 "more worlds to conquer.'* 



There was at that time no general demand for 

 Reapers in any European country. Labor was 

 plentiful and cheap forty cents a day in 

 Great Britain and about half as much in Ger- 

 many and France. In Austria and Russia the 



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