Wisconsin State Agricultural Society . 
m 
machine only it was difficult in managing. I run it four or five 
years and left it out doors thinking I could get rid of it, but it never 
would rot or break, and never would give up. I tried various other 
machines, and I knew if I bought one I would get swindled, but 
finally there was an agent there who wanted me to buy a McCormick 
Advance machine. He said I could cut my grass and grain with it. 
I would not take it, I wanted to buy a Marsh Harvester, I would 
not buy any other. But this agent would not keep any of them, 
and so my boys agreed to take the Advance on trial, and went to 
cutting wheat with it. It made little small bundles and it would 
take ten men—cutting five acres—to handle it in a hot day. And 
when I got my ten acres I said I never would cut another acre with 
it, and I sent for the agent and said, now come, take the machine 
away; would give him $10 to take it away. He said he would not 
take it away at all; he said never mind, your boys bought it any 
way, and you must take it. So then I went and took a Marsh Har¬ 
vester, and agreed to pay $235 for it, and I took it out into my 
land right where I had left this Advance, hoping I would run 
into it and break it all to pieces. At any rate I commenced and 
I drove the team myself and drove them just right, though it 
would not go more than two feet where it was heavy, and I sent 
for this agent of the McCormick machine, and that man could not 
hardly waddle along he was so fat; and says I “what I want of 
you is to stay there, and my boys can bind around the field quicker 
than you can walk around there, and if they cannot do it, I will 
buy your machine. 1 ' And he says “they cannot do anything of 
the kind;” but when he got about half a mile he sat down puffing 
and said he would not walk any longer; But I had to keep his 
machine for he would not take it back. I have run the Marsh 
Harvester five years, and I never paid out $5 for repairs on it; and 
my boys average eight to ten acres a day with it. Two men bind 
and one sets it up, and the boy drives the reaper, and I save a dol¬ 
lar an acre over and above what I could save with the McCormick 
machine on my farm, more than I could with that great big ma¬ 
chine, and the Advance machine was not worth hauling into my field. 
Mr. Bention. I wish to make an explanation. Those figures 
in my article I have worked out on ni} r farm, and I speak whereof 
1 know and have done. 
