CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 



farm laborers received no wages at all. They 

 were serfs. There was no economic reason why 

 serfs should be replaced by machinery. They 

 had first to become free and expensive to employ, 

 before this Reaper, this product of a free re- 

 public, could set them free from the drudgery 

 of the harvest. 



England had been the first European country 

 to abolish this serfdom. Several centuries be- 

 fore, the ravages of the Black Death had made 

 farm laborers so scarce that their rights had 

 begun to be respected. Also, the upgrowth of 

 the factory system and the development of Eng- 

 lish shipping had called thousands of men away 

 from the fields, and raised the wages of those 

 who were left behind. And the falling off in 

 profits was compelling many English land- 

 owners to study better methods of farming, and 

 to favor the introduction of farm machinery. 



Fortunately for McCormick, he had no sooner 

 begun to think of foreign trade than there came 

 the famous London Exposition of 1851. This 

 mammoth Exhibition was to Great Britain 

 what the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 was to 



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