76 A REVIEW, 



has ever seen a Reaper, that no great outlay in machinery is required 

 to build them on a moderate scale, and that the same machinery is 

 equally adapted to the construction of threshing machines, and a 

 hundred other kinds of work. It is only in such shops— " these vast 

 establishments," as these parties in the State of New York have, who 

 boast of selling their thousands upon thousands of Reapers annually, 

 that "millions" can be used; and with these, the main expense is for 

 materials and workmanship, not dead capital invested in machinery. 

 It is however just as easy to twite viillions, as thousands. We have 

 known good and efficient reapers built— after the right was honestly 

 obtained, to build the right kind, — by persons who were not mechanics 

 by profession. A good country blacksmith, aided by a worker in 

 wood, and a suitable lathe to turn the journals, are altogether com- 

 petent with a little experience to do the work; and such has been the 

 start. of almost every ^;7>/W/ ?>/7r-'//^/'. True, tl.e Capitalist by a divi- 

 sion of labor, and more extensive machinerv can do a largerbusiness, 

 and make more money. 



Much parade is made, and much stress laid, on doing injustice to 

 the "public" — "the innocent public," in granting this particular 

 extension. Do the farmers, who alone use these machines, constitute 

 the "innocent public" which so claims their sympathy? By no 

 means; but it consists of — and by their own showing, a few million- 

 aires, the assignees of a poor patentee, who seek to deprive others of 

 their just rights, in order to increase still more, their own sordid gains. 

 The Farmer is not \\^& party sought to be benefitted in this crusade 

 against a " sailor's right:" ///r/r interest, and the " public good," are 

 but as the paw of poor puss to get at the roasted clicstnnts. Do these 

 very disinterested and public spirited parties who are so alive to the 

 " public good," reduce the price of their machines to the farmer? Do 

 they not charge just as high for them now, when they boast of selling 

 thousands annually, as when the sales did not reach hundreds? We 

 know they do, for we have now before us their hand bills for several 

 years past. 



We do not believe there is a disinterested and liberal minded 

 farmer or mechanic in the Union, who knowing the facts or true 

 merits of the case, would oppose or object to the extension. All such 

 with whom we have conferred, both as Societies and individually, are 

 in favor of it, as a reward fairly and fully earned by years of toil, in 

 the effort to benefit the agricultural interests of the country. This is 

 not the place to enter into details of profits, &c.; but as we sometimes 

 arrive at correct results by comparisons, it may be stated, that owing 

 to his very limited means in part, but more to the great difficulty in 

 inducing the farmers to adopt improvements, — proverbial as they 

 generally are for caution, and adhering to old and long established 

 usages — Hussey sold less than three hundred maehines, all told, [but not 

 paid for to this day,] during the whole term of the Patent, of fourteen 

 years! It required eleven years to sell less than half of them:— not an 

 average of \\\q one hundredth part of what these capitalists, or "the 

 principal of then" boast of having sold in a single year ; nor W\c four 



