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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



one city in Norway, one in Sweden, and 

 one in Poland has more Norwegians, 

 Swedes, and Poles, respectively. 



Still another chapter might be devoted 

 to the railroads, for Chicago is preemi- 

 nently the world's railroad capital. Here 

 centers nearly half the railroad mileage 

 of the nation. The trackage within its 

 limits would reach from New York to 

 San Francisco. Some fifteen hundred 

 trains arrive and depart every day ; yet 

 not a single one passes through. More 

 sleeping cars roll into the city every 

 morning than into any other city in the 

 world. Fourteen States in the American 

 Union have less main-line mileage than 

 Chicago has trackage. 



MACHINERY THAT IS FEEDING THE WORLD 



Chicago's manufactures especially claim 

 attention because, as pointed out in the 

 beginning, they have served to revamp 

 the economic and travel geography of the 

 world. So remarkable has been the 

 growth of these industries that they have 

 made a thousand millionaires the while 

 they have enriched the whole world. 



First in the order of their founding 

 and in its service to humanity is the har- 

 vesting-machine industry. When Cyrus 

 McCormick invented his reaper, back in 

 the quiet little valley of the Shenandoah, 

 little did he dream that in less than four- 

 score years the whole grain-producing 

 world would resound with the click of its 

 sickles, and less did he foresee the tre- 

 mendous growth in the world's popula- 

 tion that certainly would have brought 

 starvation but for the reaper. And when 

 Deering boldly staked the earnings of a 

 lifetime on the Appleby binder and on 

 Manila twine, he did not foresee how 

 great a service to humanity he was ren- 

 dering. 



Yet today a single agricultural machin- 

 ery plant covers 229 acres, has a floor 

 space of 4,000,000 square feet, employs 

 9,000 men and women, makes 200 tons of 

 twine a day, and turns out a farm ma- 

 chine every thirty seconds. Within 10 

 minutes' motor ride, another big plant 

 employs 7,000 people and does a business 

 only a shade smaller. A binder every 

 two minutes and a mower every time the 



clock ticks off 60 seconds is the record 

 of the latter plant when it concentrates 

 on these two types of machines. 



When the reaper was invented there 

 was still left the problem of binding the 

 grain, gathering the sheaves and shock- 

 ing them. Then came the twine binder 

 and the elimination of hand binding. But 

 gathering the sheaves was a piece of very 

 hard work for the small boys on the 

 farm. Before them was the binder, kick- 

 ing out the sheaves as fast as four spir- 

 ited horses could walk, and behind them 

 the shockers, always with a "hurry up, 

 boys," as counsel. When the bundle car- 

 rier came, the kiddies of the farm sang 

 paeans of praise to its inventor. 



But still there was the problem of 

 shocking. It takes two hard-working 

 men to shock behind an ordinary binder 

 with an ordinary field of wheat. For 

 years the harvester companies saw these 

 men working and took it as a challenge 

 to their labor-saving genius. At last 

 Chicago is able to offer the world a 

 mechanical shocker. The new machine 

 shocks wheat like a veteran, setting up 

 the sheaves and putting on the caps as 

 if it were human. 



It is a sight to see the different types 

 of implements made by the Chicago farm- 

 machinery factories. One might think 

 that a mower is a mower before going 

 there, but it will soon be found that there 

 are mowers and mowers. Here is one 

 geared to cow power, another for water- 

 buffalo ; there one made for horses, and 

 over yonder one to be pulled by a tractor. 

 One is made for extremely low cutting 

 and another for very high. One has a 

 very long cutter-bar, for smooth ground 

 and a sturdy team, and another a very 

 short one, for rough ground and a light 

 team. Also there are binders that merely 

 cut and bind the grain and others that 

 cut, thresh, and bag it. Some of the ma- 

 chines must cut stalks as heavy as a lead 

 pencil, while others must take care of 

 stalks that trail on the ground like shoe- 

 strings. 



THE TWINE THAT BINDS THE WORLD'S 

 SHEAVES 



Not less interesting than the harvester 

 industry is its complement, the manufac- 



