HUSSEY'S 



REAPING AND MOWING MACHINE 



IN KNGLAND. 



In presenting the following pages for consideration of the farmers 

 of the country, the subscriber has confined himself strictly to matters 

 selected from English papers, which will speak for itself. As a short 

 explanation from me will be looked for, I will merely state, that at the 

 trial in presence of the Exhibition Jury, Mr. McCormick's machine 

 was operated by an experienced hand sent from the United States, 

 while mine was managed by English laborers of the lower class, who 

 were total strangers to it, and had never seen it in operation. The 

 trial was made in unripe wheat on a rainy day. My machine was 

 very improperly adjusted for the work and wrongly put together, in 

 consequence of which the ignorant raker failed to deliver the sheaves, 

 and it stopped as a matter of course, and was immediately laid aside, 

 after cutting but a few feet. My machine was never tried in presence 

 of that Jury by any other hands, or in any other condition, myself not 

 being in England. 



It was on such a trial that the Exhibition medal was disposed of, 

 and with what justice the reader can judge by reading the following 

 pages. On my arrival in England I took my machine into the field 

 that it might work its way into public favor, as it best could. After 

 being exhibited in several places, its rising fame appeared to produce 

 some effect, as it will appear by the following in the Windsor and 

 Eaton Express, of Nov. 8, 1851: 



Alluding to the astonishing and unexpected performance of my 

 Reaper, it says: — By this unlooked for turn of events, the proprietors of 

 M' Cormiclc s 7na chine found tliat their siipretnacy zvas no longer undisputed, 

 and that the necessity zvas laid upon them to look to their laurels ; they there- 

 fore came boldly forivard, and thrczv down the gauntlet! !" 



That farmers who are acquainted with my reaper may understand 

 why it failed to perform well in the hands of strangers at the Exhibi- 

 tion trial where McCormick got the medal. It will be necessary for 

 me to say, that when the machine was sent from Baltimore it was set 

 to cut high. Tiiat when the inexperienced hands undertook to make 

 it cut low, they pitched down the cutters by putting on the tongue, 

 not knowing any other way to lower it. In doing so the hind part of 

 the platform was of course raised high. In this condition the unprac- 

 ticed raker failed to push the heavy wet wheat off up an inclined plane; 

 and as a matter of course the machine choaked, and for the same 



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