38 



It was with much difficulty that Mr. McCormick moved from place 

 to place over the country, making most of the journeys on horseback. 

 He was without means, and dependent, largely, upon the assistance 

 of others; but his reaper was successful, and the thousands of them 

 that he sold, with the cutting apparatus of 1842, shows conclusively 

 that his was a practical machine years before Hussey's cutting appara- 

 tus had been made a success. Attention is called to the fact that Mc- 

 Cormick had a clear idea, in 1842, of cutting by a reciprocating blade 

 that slid upon a curved support to hold the blade closely against a 

 finger, thus giving a shear cut by a draw motion. Hussey for years, in 

 fact, never in the machines he made himself, had a " draw cut." It 

 is the " shear draw cut" that makes the modern cutting apparatus suc- 



cessful. The drawing herewith (Fig. 9) shows in full lines Hussey's 

 long-pointed knife, which formed an angle of but 18 degrees between 

 its edge and the guard. Even in the mowing machine of to-day the 

 angle is 35 degrees almost twice as great and in the harvester it is 

 55 degrees three times as great. The line made in dots shows the 

 mower section and that in dashes the harvester section that is in use at 

 the present time. The most careful work in the making of harvesting 

 machinery is the fitting of the knives so they will reciprocate through 



