51 



vibrating through or into double fingers, a combination which I be- 

 lieve to be substantially my own invention, and entirely different from 

 McCormick's, and on which my machine entirely depends for its ef- 

 ficiency as a reaper. None of these latter points, either combined or 

 separate, are found in McCormick's reaper, he having abandoned the 

 double fingers four or five years ago." 



The reason for Hussey's tactics is plain. He had been defeated in 

 his application for extension. He knew that McCormick was in a po- 

 sition where he could control the building of all reapers with a knife, 

 reciprocated by a crank with fixed fingers to prevent the grain moving 

 with the knife. Hussey's only hope, therefore, was to destroy Mc- 

 Cormick's patent by seeking to anticipate it in old publications of ma- 

 chines which had never been built, or if built had never operated. The 

 only way he could do this was to pick out a feature here and 

 there from the old pictures. He took a crank from one, a side draft 

 from another and the double fingers from another. This plan led him 

 into trouble with his own machines, as his lancet-point knives were 

 old and his double fingers were old. To meet this difficulty, he set up, 

 for himself, the claim of a combination- He did not minimize his own 

 invention. Manning's patent shows the lancet-shaped knives, and Mc- 

 Cormick had the double fingers in 1831. But he did minimize Mc- 

 Cormick's. In none of the machines to which he referred nor in any 

 machine made before McCormick's is there a reciprocating knife driven 

 by a crank working in combination with a reel ; in none is there a di- 

 vider; in none is there a reel working in combination with a divider ; 

 in none is there a reciprocating knife driven by a crank, with fixed 

 fingers to prevent the straw from moving with the knife ; in none is 

 there a platform to receive the grain, so attached to the machine that 

 a bundle can be raked from it to the side, out of the way of the machine, 

 in the next round of the field ; in none is there a machine mounted 

 upon two wheels, the major part of the weight resting upon the main 

 wheel, thus giving sufficient traction to operate the machine ; in none 

 is there a side draft on a machine, wherein the major part of the 

 weight rests upon one wheel, and that wheel located behind the team. 

 These features are McCormick's invention, and neither Bell, Scott, 

 Gladstone, Phmket, nor any of the dreamers and builders of unsuccessful 

 reapers before McCormick, contains these features. Place these essential 

 elements in the scale on one side and alloiv Hussey the only combination 



