HIS LIFE AND WORK 



with two cents you can pay for the making of 

 a hundred. Both bolts and nuts are shaped by 

 automatic machines which are so simple that 

 a boy can operate five at once, and so swift that 

 other boys with wheelbarrows are kept busy 

 carrying away their finished product. 



There is one specially designed machine, with 

 a battery of augurs, which bores twenty-one 

 holes at once, thus saving four-fifths of a cent 

 per board. Another special machine shapes 

 poles and saves one cent per pole. Such tiny 

 economies appear absurd, until the immense 

 output is taken into account. Whoever can 

 reduce the costs in the McCormick plant one 

 cent per machine, adds thereby $3,500 a year 

 to the profits, and helps to make it possible for 

 a farmer to buy a magical self-binder, built 

 up of 3,800 parts, for less than the price of a 

 good horse, or for as much wheat as he can 

 grow in one season on a dozen acres. 



The vast McCormick City has its human side, 

 too, in spite of all its noise and semi-automatic 

 machinery. Cyrus McCormick was not one of 

 those employers who call their men by numbers 



[199] 



