The same year (1840) a stranger rode in from the north and drew rein in front of the little log workshop. He was a rough looking man with the homely name of Abraham Smith, but to Cyrus he came as an angel of light. He had comewith fifty dollars in his pocket to buy a reaper—the first that was ever sold. A short time later two other farmers came on the same errand, and that summer three reaping machines were working in the wheat-fields of America. In 1842 McCormick sold seven machines, and in 1844 fifty. The home farm had now become a busy factory.
Three years later a friend said to him "Cyrus, why don't you go West with your reaper, where the land is level and labour cheap?"
It was the call of the West.
He travelled over the boundless prairies, and was quick to see that this great land-ocean was the natural home of the reaper. Straightway he transferred his factory to Chicago—then, in 1847, a forlorn little town of less than 10,000 souls. His business flourished. In the great fire of 1871 his factory, which was then turningout 10,000 harvesters a year, was totally destroyed. At the word of his wife he rebuilt it anew with amazing rapidity. And so we find that the tiny workshop in the backwoods of Virginia has become the McCormick City in the heart of Chicago. In the sixty-five years of its life this manufactory has produced over 6,000,000 harvesting machines, and is now pouring them out at the rate of over 7,000 per week. The McCormick Company is now known as the International Harvester Company, and his eldest son, Cyrus H. McCormick, is the President. The annual output is 75,000,000 dollars. It was the reaper that enabled the United States, during the four years of the civil war, not only to feed the armies in the field, but at the same time to export to foreign countries 200,000,000 bushels of wheat. And well might the savants of the French Academy of Science say, when electingCyrus McCormick a member, that "he had done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living man."
And now we must trace the evolution of the reaper from its origin on the Walnut Grove Farm to the marvellous machine of to-day. For about thirty years it remained practically unaltered in design, save that seats had been added for the raker and the driver. It did no more than cut the grain and leave it in loose bundles on the ground. It had abolished the sickler and cradler, but there still remained the raker and binder. Might it not be possible to do away with them also, and leave only the driver? Such was the fascinating problem which now confronted the inventor.
In the year 1852 a bedridden cripple called Jearum Atkins bought a McCormick reaper, and had it placed outside his window. To while away the weary hourshe actually devised an attachment with two revolving iron arms, which automatically raked off the cut grain from the platform to the ground. It was a grotesque contrivance, and was nicknamed by the farmers the "iron man." Nevertheless, this invention stimulated the manufacture of self-rake reapers, and soon the American farmer would buy no other kind. Thus part of the problem had been solved. The raker was abolished. But there still remained the harder task of supplanting the binder—the man or the woman who gathered up the bundles of cut corn and bound them tightly together with a wisp of straw into the sheaf.
And now another figure appears upon this ever-moving stage, a young man by the name of Charles B. Withington. Born at Akron, Ohio, a year before McCormick invented his reaper, this delicateyouth was trained by his father to be a watchmaker. At the age of fifteen, in order to earn pocket-money, he went into the harvest field to bind corn. He was not robust, and the hard, stooping labour under a hot sun would sometimes bring the blood to his head in a hemorrhage. There were times after the day's work was done when he was too weary to walk home, and he would throw himself on the stubble to rest. At eighteen he journeyed to the goldfields of California, drifted to Australia, and in the year 1855 arrived back in Wisconsin with 3,000 dollars in his belt. All this money he began to fritter away in trying to invent a self-rake reaper. Suddenly, inspired by the articles of a rural editor, who maintained that the binding of corn should be done by a machine, Withington dropped his self-rake and went straight to work to make a self-binder. He completedhis first machine in 1872, but met with much discouragement until, two years later, he came across McCormick.
Their dramatic meeting is best told by Mr. Herbert M. Casson in his interesting volume, entitled "Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work."
"One evening in 1874 a tall man; with a box under his arm, walked diffidently up the steps of the McCormick home in Chicago, and rang the bell. He asked to see Mr. McCormick, and was shown into the parlour, where he found Mr. McCormick, sitting, as usual, in a large and comfortable chair."'My name is Withington,' said the stranger; I live in Janesville, Wisconsin. I have here a model of a machine that will automatically bind grain.'"Now, it so happened that McCormick had been kept awake nearly the whole of the previous night by a stubborn business problem. He could scarcely hold his eyelids apart. And when Withington was in the midst of his explanation, with the intentness of a born inventor, Mr. McCormick fell fast asleep. At such a reception to his cherished machine Withington lost heart. He was a gentle, sensitive man easily rebuffed, and so, when McCormick arousedfrom his nap, Withington had departed, and was on his way back to Wisconsin. For a few seconds McCormick was uncertain as to whether his visitor had been a reality or a dream. Then he awoke with a start into instant action. A great opportunity had come to him, and he had let it slip. He was at this time making self-rake reapers and Marsh harvesters; but what he wanted—what every reaper manufacturer wanted in 1871—was a self-binder. He at once called one of his trusted workmen."'I want you to go to Janesville,' he said. Find a man named Withington and bring him to me by the first train that comes back to Chicago.'"The next day Withington was brought back, and treated with the utmost courtesy. McCormick studied his invention, and found it to be a most remarkable mechanism. Two steel arms caught each bundle of grain, whirled a wire tightly around it, fastened the two ends together with a twist, cut it loose, and tossed it to the ground. This self-binder was perfect in all its details—as neat and effective a machine as could be imagined. McCormick was delighted. At last, here was a machine that would abolish the binding of grain by hand."
"One evening in 1874 a tall man; with a box under his arm, walked diffidently up the steps of the McCormick home in Chicago, and rang the bell. He asked to see Mr. McCormick, and was shown into the parlour, where he found Mr. McCormick, sitting, as usual, in a large and comfortable chair.
"'My name is Withington,' said the stranger; I live in Janesville, Wisconsin. I have here a model of a machine that will automatically bind grain.'
"Now, it so happened that McCormick had been kept awake nearly the whole of the previous night by a stubborn business problem. He could scarcely hold his eyelids apart. And when Withington was in the midst of his explanation, with the intentness of a born inventor, Mr. McCormick fell fast asleep. At such a reception to his cherished machine Withington lost heart. He was a gentle, sensitive man easily rebuffed, and so, when McCormick arousedfrom his nap, Withington had departed, and was on his way back to Wisconsin. For a few seconds McCormick was uncertain as to whether his visitor had been a reality or a dream. Then he awoke with a start into instant action. A great opportunity had come to him, and he had let it slip. He was at this time making self-rake reapers and Marsh harvesters; but what he wanted—what every reaper manufacturer wanted in 1871—was a self-binder. He at once called one of his trusted workmen.
"'I want you to go to Janesville,' he said. Find a man named Withington and bring him to me by the first train that comes back to Chicago.'
"The next day Withington was brought back, and treated with the utmost courtesy. McCormick studied his invention, and found it to be a most remarkable mechanism. Two steel arms caught each bundle of grain, whirled a wire tightly around it, fastened the two ends together with a twist, cut it loose, and tossed it to the ground. This self-binder was perfect in all its details—as neat and effective a machine as could be imagined. McCormick was delighted. At last, here was a machine that would abolish the binding of grain by hand."
For six years all went well with the McCormick and Withington self-binder. This wonderful wire-twisting machine was working everywhere with clockwork precision,and was believed to be the best that human ingenuity could devise. All at once the manufacturing world was startled with the news that William Deering had made and sold three thousand twine self-binders. Deering, by this dramatic move became in a flash McCormick's most powerful competitor. He was not a farmer's son, like the latter, being bred in the city and trained in a factory. He had been a successful merchant at Maine, then left it to enter the harvester trade. He staked his whole fortune on making twine binders. He won, and McCormick was forced to follow in his wake. The evolution of the reaper into the twine self-binder was an epoch-making event in the agricultural world. It enormously increased the sales. In 1880, 60,000 reapers were sold; five years later the figures had risen to 250,000. Since then, with the exception of the newknot-tying device, there has been no real change in the reaper. It remains the grandest of all agricultural machines, and one of the most astonishing mechanisms ever devised by the brain of man.
McCormick died in 1884. In the span of his own life the reaper was born and brought to perfection. He created it in a remote Virginian village, and he lived to see his catalogue printed in twenty languages, and to know that so long as the human race continues to eat bread the sun will never set on the Empire of his reaper, for somewhere, in every month in all the year, you will find the corn white unto the harvest.
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Transcriber's NotesThe birth year for Thomas William Coke is reported on Page 17 as 1752; page 36 states "Coke died in 1842 at the age of eighty-eight"; and Wikipedia reports Coke was born on 6 May 1754 and died 30 June 1842 (aged 88). So, the year of Coke's birth on page 17 should probably be 1754. Wikipedia shows that a gravestone has been placed on Mr. Tull's resting place.Book cover image was adapted from the image which appears in a pdf on The Internet Archive; but the title was obscured by the library id tag. This image is placed in the public domain and may be freely used.
Transcriber's Notes
The birth year for Thomas William Coke is reported on Page 17 as 1752; page 36 states "Coke died in 1842 at the age of eighty-eight"; and Wikipedia reports Coke was born on 6 May 1754 and died 30 June 1842 (aged 88). So, the year of Coke's birth on page 17 should probably be 1754. Wikipedia shows that a gravestone has been placed on Mr. Tull's resting place.
Book cover image was adapted from the image which appears in a pdf on The Internet Archive; but the title was obscured by the library id tag. This image is placed in the public domain and may be freely used.