48 Report on Sheaf -binding Machinery at Shrewshury. 
to the memory of the late Mr. Cyrus Hall McCormick, who died 
in May last at Philadelphia, U.S., at the ripe age of 75. Mr. 
McCormick was undoubtedly the great pioneer in the manu- 
facture of reaping-machines. The following extract from an 
article published at the time of his death gives an interesting 
account of the rise and progress of the world-famed industry of 
which he was the founder. 
Cyrus Hall McCormick, the inventor of the reaping-machine, was bom in 
Virginia in 1809, of parents both of whom were of Scotch-Irish descent. His 
father, Eobert McCormick, was a farmer, owning several farms, with saw and 
grist mUls, and having shops for blacksmithing, carpentering, machinery, drc, 
in which the genius of young McCormick early found scope for exercise and 
experiment. 
The facilities for acquiring an education at that early day were much more 
limited than at present, and the successful men who graduated Irom the hard 
school of manual labour into positions of commanding influence owed every- 
thing to natural aptitude and an inquiring mind. 
In 1831 Mr. McCormick invented the machine which has proved such a 
blessing to mankind and carried his name throughout all the ends of the 
earth. The original reaping-machine was crude, heavy, and awkward, but it 
is the model after which every reaping-machine from that day to this has 
been fashioned ; and no greater honour could be laid at the feet of any inventor 
than this confession of the world's master-mechanics than that they have not 
been able to devise any successful plan of harvesting grain by machinery that 
could dispense with the features in the first McCormick reaper. 
For several years Mr. McCormick contented himself with experimenting 
with his machine, during which time its value was demonstrated by frequent 
use in the field, and various improvements were made in the details of its 
construction. The first patent was issued to Mr. McCormick in 1834. 
Unlike most inventors, Mr. McCormick had the business tact and shrewd- 
ness to profit by his own invention. Since 1849 he has manufactured and 
sold his own machines, and, in spite of the keenest opposition by rival 
companies, his business has more than kept pace with the rapid development 
of the country. 
As early as 1816 Eobert McCormick, the father of the inventor, devised a 
reaping-machine with which he experimented in the hai^vest of that year, but 
finally abandoned it as impracticable. The fate of the machine invented by 
Cyrus H. McCormick was different. It was a success from the beginning, 
though many years elapsed before its introduction into general use. In 1848 
but 700 McCormick reapers were made and sold, but the following year the 
sales amounted to 1500. Since then the annual sales have regularly increased, 
until last year over 50,000 machines were sold. In the light of these facts 
how prophetic seems the statement of the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, in an argu- 
ment before the Commissioner of Patents in 1859, when he said that, from the 
testimony taken in the case, " the JlcCormick reaper had already contributcil 
an annual income to the whole country of $50,000,000 at least, which must 
increase throughout all time I " 
The " original Marsh Harvester " is said to be the founda- 
tion upon which all the binders have been built. This machine 
elevated and delivered the sheaves on to a table ready for 
binding by hand. When it was discovered how readily this 
was done, it was seen that an automatic binder was the next 
