74 
Report on the Trials of Sheaf-Binders 
Watson and Renwick, examining solicitors in the United States 
Patent Office, and though, as is often the case, the original 
inventors did not make much of it themselves, it proved the 
basis of all the present successful machines. It is one thing to 
invent and another to successfully bring out an invention. 
I am indebted to Mr. Wood himself for the following par- 
ticulars. 
From the date of this first attempt, up to about eleven years 
since — i. e. the year 1867 — numerous patents were granted by 
the United States Government, but nothing actually workable 
and that was worked was produced. In the year 1867 
Mr. Wood commenced his experiments. In the two following 
years field trials were carried out, and in 1870 he had four 
machines out, two of which were sold. As far as Mr. Wood 
knows, these were the first successful automatic grain-binders 
ever made. I think it only fair to Mr. Wood to state that at 
one period of his work the Company whom he represented were 
not prepared to continue the experiments any further, probably 
daunted by the large capital absorbed without any apparent 
results. It was then that the progress and future of the inven- 
tion hung in the balance, and depended on the unconquerable 
determination of one man, who never hesitated, assumed the 
whole responsibility, and now deservedly reaps the whole profits. 
Those who know nothing of the years of weary thought, and the 
thousands spent, may consider the machine far too costly at the 
price charged, but let them pause before they form their judg- 
ment, and hear what Mr. Wood says : — 
" Taking the expenses of the eleven years I have had this 
machine in hand, which would include labour in the works and 
field, material, patents purchased, travelling expenses and freight, 
on account of testing the different experimental devices in the 
field, they would foot up over ^150,000, and this is the third 
year it has brought me in any profits. No other builder of 
agricultural implements in our country gave the matter of an 
automatic grain-binder serious thought, until after I had begun 
to make a profit out of them. I do not think my competitors 
would object to my saying this. The numerous patents granted 
on grain-binders went to ingenious workmen without means to 
carry on field experiments, which were absolutely necessary to 
the bringing into use of a practical and successful machine. I 
happened to have the means and sufficient ingenuity to accom- 
plish this, and was the first to do it." 
Such is Mr. Wood's unassuming statement of an enterprise 
which has resulted up to the j)resent time in the sale of some- 
where about 12,000 machines. In order to prevent any mis^ 
conception, I may mention that the fact of Mr. Lock's name 
