SECRETARY'S REPORT. 221 



"Wood's pclf-rakinj]; reaper, coml)ined reaper and mower, and 

 grass-cutting machine ; Russell & Tremain's reaping macliine — 

 a new mechanical invention ; Kirby & Osborne's reaper and 

 mower ; Redstone's mowing and reaping machine, and McCor- 

 mick's reaper. The last ranks first in the estimation of those 

 who crowded around, though whetlier justly or more from its 

 high reputation, it is not for me to say. It was splendidly got 

 up, without regard to cost, and its former success no doubt 

 increased the interest manifested in it by the public. It was 

 put to the test of trial in the neighborhood of the city, and 

 sustained its high reputation so well that the " Mark Lane 

 Express " spoke of it as follows : " McCormick, of Chicago, III., 

 has laid the world under new obligations. No one can pretend 

 to be insensible to the economic benefits which have been con- 

 ferred upon the farmers of this country by the introduction of 

 the reaping machine, which was the wonder of the Exhibition 

 of 1851. It has played an important part in the salvation of 

 our harvests, when otherwise they must have suffered to con- 

 siderable extent on account of the westward movement of our" 

 population. It was in fact the first machine in England which 

 settled the question, in the farmer's eyes, between the mechanical 

 and the manual process of corn cutting. When we say that from 

 the Brentwood Works so many as three thousand reapers have 

 already been supplied to the farmers of the United Kingdom, 

 and capable of cutting down from twelve to fifteen acres a day ; 

 that hundreds of men are laying low the golden harvests, and 

 saving the fruit of man's toils in the fields of France, Russia, 

 Spain, Germany, Italy and Belgium; and that, further, the 

 inventor, within the last twenty years, has supplied forty thou- 

 sand machines to secure the grain crops of the world's corn-field 

 of America, some slight idea will be gained of the benefits which 

 may be conferred on his fellow men by one persevering tliinker. 

 The machine of 1851 has enabled us to look the arduousness of 

 the harvest in the face with comparative nonchalance ; but the 

 machine to which we are about to revert, and which occupies a 

 place in the present International Exhibition, promises yet 

 further to simplify the work of the harvest field." 



Other journals were quite as cordial in their encomiums of 

 this and other American machines, and even the unscrupulous, 

 anti- American " London Times " is decidedly warm in its praise, 



