Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-03-28
Spectator.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2S, 1888.
The Reaper-Binder.

The Reaper-Blnder.
THE FIRST ANNOUNCED SUCCESS OF THE
REAPER WAS IN AUGUSTA COUNTY
SOMETHING OF THE HISTORY OF THE
Binder.
WILL STAUNTON ENTERTAIN AN OFFER TO
ESTABLISH A MANDATORY
Until the steamturning plough becomes
generally established implement in agri-
cultural economy, the grain-growing inter-
est will continue more absorbed in per-
fecting the binder than any other of the
improved labor-saving devices, nor then
will it cease to be the first of the two prin-
cipal agents in farm operations
The first improvement upon the hand
sickle is mentioned by the elder Pliny. 1t
was very ordinary machine, failing to
reap clean, did not save the straw and
wasted the grain in the swath. In after
times, the Britons-their statesmen and
scientists as well as the advanced men in
mechanics-worked away long years in the
effort to perfect reaping machine. Ameri-
cans followed in the enchanted fields of
hope and desire to accomplish it. They
toiled over the problem as it was, with
varying success-to-day seeming to have it.;
tomorrow not. Hdssey and Mccormick
were contemporaries, and in the outset the
first had the advantage of the latter in ad-
vertised celebrity. From 1881 to 1888 both
subjected their machines to practical tests
in grain-felds, -McCor at and around
his Valley home, and Hussey upon broader
and better-tilled fields in Hamilton county,
Ohio. Neither were satisfied, and the
principal defect, clear to the minds of both,
was the imperfect blade or sickle, which
both had applied-it was like knife blade
with smooth edge. At the old family
mansion on the summit of the central
watershed of the Valley is the old shop
and many of the tools kept intact to this
day, as the great inventor left them after
his success was assured. Who can estimate
the brain and nerve work he piled beside
the bold fountain of which he drank and
beneath the old walnut trees where he rested
his weary limbs. Mccormick paused in out
ward demonstration for few years, and IL
the meantime erected and worked Cotopax
furnace, where he had a foundry making
improved castings for his machine, and il
procuring improved artisan skill in perfect
ing q sickle which he had drafted, and tha
was the saw-tooth blade of to-day, upor
the principle of which there has been nj
improvement and it is regarded as perfect
Occupied in conducting mis- iron business
which was not. successful, and the long
time he had been employed in developing
his new sickle, it was natural for him tt
be cautious in making another public de
monstration with his machine. This hi
did in very quiet way in his own neigh
borhood around Midway during TIE wheat
harvest of 1889. His new saw-tooth sickle
was its GROWING excellence. In the mean
time, the wheat-harvest was over, when the
late MI. Joseph Smith invited him to test
his reaper in q field of very fine oats on the
''Scott farm" about three miles from
Staunton, near Folly Mills. In the SPEC
TAToR of the 10th July, 1889, Mr.. McCor
mick published a card of public invitation
to all who might desire to see his "Reap
ing Machine" at work at the place nance
above on the 23rd. This language occurs
in his card "The subscriber, in conse
quence of other engagements and failure
in the crops Of grain, has done nothing
with his machine for several years unit
recently, since which he has made somt
important improvements upon it. He has
cut with il during the present harvest about
rs acres of wheat and rye, and thinks iii
performance now unexceptionable."
General Harper, then editor of the SPEC
TATeR, was one of the large company pres
ent at the trial. In the issue of July 25th
two days thereafter, he gave full descrip
ton of the machine in which this language
occurs; "To say that we were pleased
with its operation would poorly express
the qualification We experienced. 1t is GER
iainly an admirable invention. 1t moves
at a brisk walk, cutting a swath of about
six feet without leaving a head" On the
4th of August following, the SPECTATOR
contains card signed by Abram Smith,
George Eskridge, James Bell, Joseph
Smith, W. W. Donaghe, Silas H. Smith,
Nicholas G. Kinney, Kenton Harper, James
Points, Benjamin Crawford, and Solomon
D. Coiner, bearing testimony to its ''admi-
rable and satisfactory performance. Con-
tinuing, they say, "Tbe ground in which
we saw it at work was somewhat siding
and the grain heavy and in spots consider
ably tangled, yet we discovered no differ
ence in its operations-it swept everything
in its course in reach of its knife"
= From the time that Pliny wrote to 1889
when Harper recorded the fact and these
sterling farmers of Augusta county certi-
fed,-about one thousand eight hundred
years-no machine had ever been pro-
nounced successful. 1t was the new blade
or sickle which settled the point, and from
that day McCormick's successful career
commenced. We have dwelt upon this
history for an object, as will appear further
Cd, but before closing this feature we will
mention part Of it which we think cor
rect, though writing only from memory
Hussey was, of course, chagrined at Nc
Cormick's success, and instituted suit in
the Federal Court for Infringement Of his
patent. He attempted to show, also, that
Mccormick was not the inventor of the
saw-tooth sickle. Hussey utterly failed 10
his SUBTITLE decision in the case sustaining
Mccormick at every point.
ANOTHER CHAPTER.
Mccormick and many other inventors
and manufacturers have applied new
features both to the rcapers and mowers,
and for some years we have had the binder
combined with the reaper, and the binder
is now the great machine of the age. New
progress has been made, also, with the
binder, Simplifying it's work and dispens-
ing with much of the complicated machine
ry in perfeGting the sheaf before it leaves