2? 



wheat in the morning, nor can it op erate after much has fallen in the 

 evening. ... It would add greatly to the value of this machine 

 if the ingenious inventor, Mr. Hussey, can devise some way to make 

 them cut damp straw, so they could be kept at work all day." 



Bolden declared that: 



'"' With three mules and a man to drive and one on the machine 

 to rake the wheat from the platform upon which, as it is cut, it falls, 

 we estimated that rather more than one acre per hour was reaped. The 

 machine does not cut well early in the morning, when the wheat is 

 moist." 



In 1842, at a meeting of the Prince George County (Va.) Agri- 

 cultural Society, July 4, a report was submitted by the Committee to 

 the effect that: 



" Hussey's wheat reaping machine has been introduced on one 

 of the Brandon estates, but owing principally to its inability to work 

 when the wheat is damp from dew, no material advantage has yet re- 

 sulted from it." 



In March of 1843 Hussey, who had read the glowing accounts of 

 the work of McCormick's machines in Virginia, wrote to the editor 

 of the Southern Planter as follows : 



" I saw in your last Planter an account of another reaper in your 

 State, which is attracting some attention, it shall be my endeavor to 

 meet that machine in the field in th e next harvest. I think it but jus- 

 tice to give this public notice, that parties concerned may not be 

 taken unawares, but have the opportunity to prepare themselves for 

 such a contest." 



McCormick accepted this challenge through the columns of the 

 Richmond Enquirer, and suggested that Hussey meet him on the 

 farm of Mr. Ambrose Hutchinson, where a machine that he had sold 

 to the President of the Virginia State Agricultural Society, Rev. J. 

 H. Turner, would be in operation. In accepting Hussey's challenge, 

 he said: 



" I will willingly submit the pretensions of both machines to the 

 arbitrament of a disinterested tribunal of experienced farmers. . . . 

 I shall endeavor to show in the first place that my machine will cut 

 damp or wet wheat, and, in order to do so, propose to commence 

 cutting at sunrise. I shall further endeavor to show that it will cut 

 15 acres a day, without pushing or driving, and with a very light two- 

 horse draft." 



In place of going to the farm of Mr. Hutchinson, Hussey brought 



