26 ■ BRIEF NAKKATIVE Ob' THE 



of the machine. Mr. McEhoy is dead, where you boarded, and also 

 Samuel Muldrow and James Muldrow. Still I will inquire if any 

 persons can be found who were present. 



I know the results, and recollect distinctly the reception the 

 machines met with, and the prices, to wit: $150 each. Muldrow bought 

 another for S;oo — which was a whirling wheel. You recollect it: 

 it never run any. Yours, I know it was said then, would cut off brush 

 large enough for a hoop-pole. Court is now in session, but as soon 

 as I can ascertain the witnesses (at the exhibition) I will write you 

 further. But my recollection is distinct, from the relations existing 

 between us, my interest in machinery generally, and my position 

 as editor of the only paper of this section of country. 



As ever, your friend, 



Edwin G. Pratt. 



In 1836, O. Hussey visited Maryland at the written solicitation of 

 the Board of Trustees of The Maryland Agricultural Society, for 

 the Eastern Shore. The fame of his reaping exploits in the State of 

 New York, and the far West, had reached the East; though with 

 something like a " snail's pace." We had not then the Magnetic Tele- 

 graph, which with lightning speed enables the East to ta/k with the 

 \\'est; nor even the "iron horse," by whose speed and power, the 

 reaper that cut a large crop of wheat in Maryland, could within the same 

 week, cut another equally large in the valley of the Mississippi; but it 

 then required some two to three j/cars to prepare the public mind for 

 the reception of the machine here; and owing to the limited means of 

 the inventor, the transportation from place to place was often done 

 by a single horse; accompanied by the inventor foot-sore and weary 

 from walking hundreds of miles! 



The annexed certificate was given, published, and widely circu- 

 lated after a full trial of the machine, in cutting more than two hun- 

 dred acres, and by large farmers and practical men, known throughout 

 the State. Comment is unnecessary on such a paper; but we feel 

 bound to state that it was mainly owing to the exertions of the liberal 

 public spirited gentlemen, the last, though not the least of the signers, 

 Gen. Tench Tilghman, that the Reaper was then introduced into this 

 State. He was the early and steadfast friend of the Patentee, and to 

 the cause of agricultural improvement in our State. Strange as it may 

 appear to many at the present day, and notwithstanding these demon- 

 strations in Ohio, Illinois, New York, Missouri and Maryland, which 

 did not admit of cavil or doubt as to the entire efficiency and success 

 of Hussey's reaper, scarcely a farmer could be found ready and willing 

 to take hold of it, and aid the Inventor in introducing it into use. But 

 farmers as a class are proverbially cautious, and disinclined to change 

 from established customs and usages; it often requires " line upon 

 line and precept upon precept," aided too, by almost a free gift of the 

 article, to induce them even to give a new agricultural implement a 

 fair trial, — a plough for instance, that will do better work, with a fourth 



