28 



"his reaper to the farm of a Mr. Wight, on the James River, on t the 

 day on which McCormick was to start in operation a machine pur- 

 chased of him by Wight. There is a statement of this trial in the 

 Richmond Enquirer, from which we learn that the McCormick ma- 

 chine operated well in the wet wheat after a heavy rain, while Hussey's 

 clogged and stopped, and in a length of twenty paces had to be 

 turned out of the crop twice and started in again by his four mules 

 at a hard trot, after which he admitted that his machine would not 

 cut wet or damp grain. 



Hussey, not being satisfied, on the 3Oth of June took his 

 reaper to Hutchinson's. McCormick was there with his machine, and 

 began cutting at 5:15 a. m., as promised. Hussey, however, did not 

 get to the field until after 10 o'clock. A committee was appointed by 

 the spectators, and the machines tried together in different locations. 

 The decision was rendered in favor of the McCormick machine be- 

 cause "it cut damp wheat, was lighter draft, had side delivery, scat- 

 tering less grain, and better quality of cut. 77 Hussey, however, when 

 defeated, wanted to try again, and the machines met on the farm of a 

 Mr. Roane. At this trial the McCormick machine cut fourteen acres 

 in one day, notwithstanding a loss of some time in the morning and 

 again after dinner. 



This was the last seen of Mr. Hussey in Virginia. He was fairly 

 beaten, but never ceased to bewail his failure. At the end of the year 

 1844 he wrote the editor of The Cultivator: 



" It is now 10 years since my invention of the reaper. I have been 

 constantly engaged since that time in its improvement. ... It 

 cannot appear strange if some of these changes may have been for the 

 worse and thereby endangered its good name. . . . My large 

 machine requires four horses." 



It has been stated that Hussey was not "strong enough" to push 

 his machine. A careful examination of his various attempts to intro- 

 duce his machines between the years 1834 and 1845 W *U show that his 

 failure was not due to lack of ability, but of cutting apparatus. From 

 the sworn testimony of his own foreman, Lovegrove, in the Hussey 

 extension case of 1861, it appears that from 1840 to 1845 ne made 

 but from twelve to forty machines annually, and from his own state- 

 ment he sold in 1847, the ^ ast year of his patent, only ten machines. 

 Hussey's brother, who had established himself at Auburn, N. Y., made 



