52 



which he claims to have invented, and let the result determine the ques- 

 tion of the invention of the reaping machine. 



Summarizing on Hussey's idea of his and McCormick's machines: 



(a) Hussey admitted McCormick to be the first, and therefore 

 picked out of his own machine a minor feature not in McCormick's, 

 and magnified this feature. 



(b) All features common to the two machines he called old and 

 minimized their value. 



(c) His one feature, which the Protest has magnified into a 

 mighty reaping machine, has on investigation shrunk to a shrivelled 

 combination of two old elements, both of which have been used before 

 for the same purpose as Hussey used them. 



(d) McCormicks machine, however, proves Hussey's minimizing 

 statements wrong, as it contains the essential elements of the reaping 

 machine which were original with McCormick, and without which no 

 successful reaper can be made even to this day. 



It is submitted that by Hussey's own statements McCormick is 

 the inventor. 



V.-IN CONCLUSION. 



It is too soon to expect an unbiased judgment of McCor- 

 mick's invention. The antagonisms engendered by an energetic 

 business career of forty years are too strong; the defeats that have 

 been suffered by the rival reaper builders at every great Exposition 

 that has ever been held are still too fresh in memory ; the failure of the 

 more than 800 different concerns that have undertaken to build har- 

 vesting machines in the past fifty years and that have succumbed to 

 the competition of the MoCormick has left enemies; in all these cases 

 time is needed to modify their animosities and cause them to forget 

 their jealousies. Many years may therefore elapse before the credit 

 and honor that belongs to the successful invention of the reaper will 

 be willingly paid, by the competing reaper builders, to Cyrus H. Mc- 

 Cormick, the man who invented the first practical reaping machine. 

 Disinterested observers of the course of events, however, have placed 

 on record their opinions, and the judgment of some of these men of 

 clear and unbiased mind will carry more weight than pages written 

 by rival builders of reapers. 



