39 



the guards and, being beveled on but one side, will form with the guard 

 a perfect " shear cut.'' Hussey's knife being beveled on both edges, 

 long and straight, had not a shear cut because its edge did not strike 

 the edge of the guard, nor had it a draw cut because of its deep pitch. 

 It was therefore necessary to propel it with great speed to make it 

 operate at all, with its chopping cut. 



In 1857 McCormick answered Hussey's suit by saying that he had 

 used the vibrating knife, moving through fingers open on their lower 

 sides, in 1831 and on to 1839. Judge McLean, in his decision, stated 

 that Hussey's reissued patent was for a scalloped blade moving through 

 open fingers; that McCormick's earlier machine had a straight blade 

 with a serrated edge in open fingers, and therefore did not anticipate 

 Hussey's invention. 



In the attacks made upon McCormick's position as inventor of the 

 reaper the writers go through all the early machines, none of which 

 harvested grain ; they pick out a side draft from one ; a small cylinder, 

 which they call a reel, from another; a long guard, which they term a 

 divider, from another; a platform from a newspaper account of a ma- 

 chine that was never built; a reciprocating knife that would not recip- 

 rocate and then say, " McCormick invented nothing every device 

 of his can be found in earlier patents." When, however, they measure 

 Hussey they do not fise the same yardstick with which they measure 

 McCormick's invention. If they did they would find Hussey's open 

 back-guard in McCormick's early machine and the scalloped recipro- 

 cating knife in Manning's patent of 1831. Thus by the same ride with 

 which they measured McCormick, Hussey invented nothing. Judge 

 McLean said, however, that it was well settled law that " Inventors of 

 a combination are as much entitled to suppress every other combina- 

 tion of the same ingredients as any other class of inventors." 

 Summarizing on the cutting apparatus : 



(a) McCormick was first (in 1831) to use a reciprocating knife 

 driven by a crank and pitman with fixed fingers to prevent the grain 

 from moving with the knife. 



(b) Hussey made, in 1833, a reciprocating blade worked by a 

 crank, the blade fitted with knives three inches wide and four and one- 

 half inches long, beveled on both sides, with fingers having slots into 

 which the knives drew trash and damp straw because of the ''chopping 

 cut," thus making the plan a failure. 



