Obed Hussey Part 10

_En pa.s.sant_, we would ask any intelligent and candid farmer or mechanic who has examined a successful reaper, to compare the foregoing plain specifications which all can understand, with the cutting apparatus of the most successful modern machine. And we would especially desire him to compare them in principle with the "improved form of fingers to hold up the corn, and an iron case to preserve the sickles from clogging;" not the alleged invention of 1831, by C. H. McCormick, and abandoned from 1840 to 1843, but the claims patented by him in 1845 [as stated in the letter to Philip Pusey, M. P.], twelve years after the date of Hussey's patent, and twelve years after his most complete and uninterrupted success in cutting both grain and gra.s.s. In fact, there was no year from and including 1833 up to 1854, a period of 21 years the past harvest, that we have not the most positive and conclusive evidence of the success of Hussey's reaper; in numerous cases the same machines had cut from 500 to 800, and even one thousand acres; in one instance, the same machine was used for fourteen harvests, or as many years, successively and successfully.

[Sidenote: Canfield Testimonial]

We have given some of the evidence for 1833. For 1834 we annex two letters giving an account of the two machines made this year, one in Illinois, and the other in New York, viz:

"Spring Creek, Sangamon Co., Ill., "October 1st, 1854.

"_Mr. Obed Hussey, Baltimore:_

"Dear Sir:--Your favor of August 10th came to hand a few days since. The reason was, it lay at Berlin (formerly Island Grove Post-office) and my Post-office address is Springfield, the only place where I call for letters.

"In answer to your query, how your Reaping Machine worked in 1834, I have to say that it cut about sixteen acres of wheat for me on my farm; that it did the work in first rate style; according to my best recollection, as well as any of the machines that have since been introduced. The only objection I recollect being made, was, that when the straw was wet, or there was much green gra.s.s among the wheat, the blades would choke. You certainly demonstrated in 1834 the practicability of cutting grain or gra.s.s with horse-power; and all the machines since introduced seem to have copied your machine in all its essential features.

"I am respectfully yours,

"JOHN E. CANFIELD."

The next letter we copy from the _Genesee Farmer_ of December 6th, 1834.

The reader will readily perceive that the author, William C. Dwight, knew how to handle the pen as well as the plow, and equally well to work the reaper, being a practical farmer. But we are pained to add that he lost his life by the fatal railroad accident at Norwalk, Ct., about a year since.

From the Genesee Farmer, December 6, 1834.

"_To the Editor of the Genesee Farmer:_

"I wrote you last May that Mr. _Hussey_, the inventor of a machine for harvesting wheat, had left in this village one of his machines for the purpose of giving our farmers an opportunity to test its value, and I promised to write you further about it when it had been put to use. For many reasons which will not interest either yourself or the public, the matter has been delayed till the first rainy day, after my fall work was out of the way, should give leisure to remember and fulfill my promise.

"The machine has been fully tried, and I am gratified to be able to say that it has fully succeeded; hundreds of farmers from the different towns of this and the adjoining counties have witnessed its operations, and all have not only expressed their confidence in its success, but their gratification in the perfection of the work.

"As every inquirer asks the same series of questions, I presume your readers will have a like course of thought, and wish for satisfaction in the same particulars. To give them this, I will write them in their order, and give the answers:

"Does the machine make clean work?

"It saves all the grain. To use the language of a gratified looker-on, an old and experienced farmer, 'it cheats the hogs.'[3]

[3] The hogs are the gleaners in this section of country.

"Does the machine expedite the work?

"What the machine is capable of accomplis.h.i.+ng, we who have used it can hardly say, as we had no field in fit order, large enough for a fair trial through a whole day; and can only say what it has done. Five acres of heavy wheat, on the Genesee flats, were harvested in two hours and a quarter.

"In what condition is the wheat left, and how is the work done where the wheat is lodged?

"The machine leaves the wheat in gavels large enough for a sheaf, and where grain stands well enough to make fair work with the cradle, it leaves the straw in as good condition to bind as the gavels of a good reaper. Whether the grain stands or is lodged is of little consequence, except as to the appearance of the sheaf, and the necessity of saving more straw, when lodged, than is desirable. The condition of the sheaf when the grain is lodged depends much upon the adroitness of the raker.

"What number of hands, and what strength of team is necessary to manage the machine advantageously?

"Two men, one to drive the team and the other to rake off the wheat, and two horses, work the machine; but when the grain is heavy, or the land mellow, a change of horses is necessary, as the gait of the horses is too rapid to admit of heavy draft. The horses go at the rate of four to five miles an hour, and when the growth of straw is not heavy a fair trot of the team is not too much.

"Is the machine liable to derangement and destruction from its own motion?

"This is a question which cannot be so directly answered as the others. We have only used the machine to cut about fifty acres, and have had no trouble; judging from appearances so far, should say it was as little subject to this evil as any machinery whatever. The wear upon the cutting part being so little as to require not more than fifteen minutes sharpening in a day; there is no loss of time on this score.

"Is the sheaf a good one to thresh?

"The man who has fed the thres.h.i.+ng machine with the grain of twenty acres cut by this machine, says the sheaves are much better than those of cradled grain, and quite as good as those of a reaper.

"There is one more advantage beyond ordinary inquiries, of consequence, where so much grain is raised as in this valley; be the grain ever so ripe, there is no waste of grain by any agitation of the straw, and all the waste which can take place must arise from the handling and shaking in binding.

"I am yours, etc.,

"WM. C. DWIGHT.

"Moscow, Livingston Co., N. Y., Nov. 14, 1834.

"N. B.--The machine we used was intended only for upland, but by some little alterations and additions we used it with equal facility on all kinds of soil; and it can be used on any farm so clean from stumps and stones as not to endanger the blocking the wheels."

The following letter is evidence for 1835, and also refers to the originality of the invention by O. Hussey.

"Palmyra, Mo., Aug. 14, 1854.

"Friend Hussey--Yours duly received. As to the machines sent by you (ordered some two years since) they both worked well.

"Before you had invented your machine in 1831 or 1832, your attention was drawn to a mode of cutting grain, hemp and gra.s.s and you told me you thought you could invent such a machine to be drawn by horses; and after you had returned to Cincinnati from Laurenceburg you wrote me a letter in '32 or at the furthest in '33 (for I left Indiana 2nd Oct., 1833) with a draft and description of a plan for cutting grain. The draft was thus (here follows a diagram of the cutting apparatus exactly as described by the patent) and the description was, that these knives were to work by the motion of the wheels, being a perfect description of the invented principle.

"As soon as I saw the plan, I was satisfied of its success and wrote to you that there was no doubt of the success of your machine; that it was astonis.h.i.+ng the world had so many thousand years been confined to the sickle when so obvious a mode of cutting grain and gra.s.s existed; and shortly after you obtained a patent for the machine.

"On the 6th July, 1835, you brought to Palmyra two of your machines, and they were put in operation near this place--one in a meadow between here and Philadelphia, and one in the heavy gra.s.s in Marion City bottom.[4] The machines did cut well. I was the editor of the _Missouri Courier_, from the month of November, 1833, until 1838, and brought your machine before the public; it excited much attention, and its performance was highly satisfactory. The results of the trials were published in the paper by me in August or September, 1835. I knew of the capacity of the machine, and that it did so execute in the bottom three acres an hour. In this I cannot be mistaken, for I felt at the time the deepest interest in the success of the machine. Mr.

McElroy is dead, where you boarded, and also Samuel Muldrow and James Muldrow. Still I will inquire if any persons can be found who were present.

[4] Both of these machines were sold to Wm. Muldrow, Agent, of Marion College, Marion County, Mo.

"I know the results, and recollect distinctly the reception the machines met with, and the prices, to wit, $150 each. Muldrow bought another for $500--which was a whirling wheel. You recollect it; it never run any. Yours, I know it was said then, would cut off brush large enough for a hoop-hole. Court is now in session, but as soon as I can ascertain the witnesses (at the exhibition) I will write you further. But my recollection is distinct, from the relations existing between us, my interest in machinery generally, and my position as editor of the only paper of this section of country.

"As ever, your friend,

"EDWIN G. PRATT."

[Sidenote: Mode of Transportation]

In 1836 O. Hussey visited Maryland at the written solicitation of the Board of Trustees of _The Maryland Agricultural Society_, for the Eastern Sh.o.r.e. The fame of his reaping exploits in the State of New York, and the far West, had reached the East; though with something like a "snail's pace." We had not then the Magnetic Telegraph, which with lightning speed enables the East to _talk_ with the West; nor even the "iron horse," by whose speed and power, the reaper that cut a large crop of wheat in Maryland, could within the same week cut another equally large in the valley of the Mississippi; but it then required some two to three _years_ to prepare the public mind for the reception of the machine here; and owing to the limited means of the inventor, the transportation from place to place was often done by a single horse; accompanied by the inventor foot-sore and weary from walking hundreds of miles!

[Sidenote: An Inventor's Difficulties]

The annexed certificate was given, published, and widely circulated after a full trial of the machine, in cutting more than two hundred acres, and by large farmers and practical men, known throughout the State. Comment is unnecessary on such a paper; but we feel bound to state that it was mainly owing to the exertions of the liberal public spirited gentlemen, the last, though not the least of the signers, Gen.

Tench Tilghman, that the Reaper was then introduced into this State. He was the early and steadfast friend of the Patentee, and to the cause of agricultural improvement in our State. Strange as it may appear to many at the present day, and notwithstanding these demonstrations in Ohio, Illinois, New York, Missouri and Maryland, which did not admit of cavil or doubt as to the entire efficiency and success of Hussey's reaper, scarcely a farmer could be found ready and willing to take hold of it, and aid the inventor in introducing it into use. But farmers as a cla.s.s are proverbially cautious, and disinclined to change from established customs and usages; it often requires "line upon line and precept upon precept," aided, too, by almost a free gift of the article, to induce them even to give a new agricultural implement a fair trial,--a plough, for instance, that will do better work, with a fourth to a third less draught; the old and nearly worn out implement "does well enough." Gen.

T. was, we believe, the first farmer in Maryland to use and purchase a reaping machine; and by so doing, to aid the inventive genius and talent of his countrymen, and also at the same time greatly to benefit the interest of his brother farmers. It avails little to the inventor, or the public, how valuable his improvement may be,--for in nine cases out of ten the inventor is limited in means,--if none can be found who are both able and willing to lend a helping hand to modest merit; for true genius is ever modest; and unfortunately the term is too often synonymous with penury and want.

[Sidenote: The Inventor's Rewards]