Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1914-06-09
ORIGIN OF THE REAPER
Still Disputed as to Who Invented
Great Implement.

Stll DlSpuICu DIS 10 WIN iHNSHtCS
Great Implement.
Agriculture, the most needed indus
try and the first to be required for the
actual support of the people, was the
last to be developed. From the time
of Pharaoh, when they prepared for
the terrible famines that swept the
land with ravages to be dreaded, until
1880, the wheat was cut with small.
unhandy sickles that left a large part
of the crop in the fields. Women and
children followed the workmen, CLEAN
ing the fallen grain by handfuls.
The farmer, because of this lack of
development, remained a brother to
the OK and mule for centuries. Only
the man of strength-brute strength
would till the soil. 1t was a series
of backbreaking efforts to plant, to
SOW and to reap.
The scythe, the cradle and the fail
these were the instruments upon
which the prosperity of nations de-
pended. THE lack of bread" declar-
ed Nautilus, when he succeeded in
abolishing the famous corn laws Of
England, was the ultimate check to
population"
The Reaper a Great Feeder.
The agricultural development of this
century is part of the miracle of the
provision of bread for ever increasing
nations. Minnesota, and the two Da-
kotas alone provide wheat to more
than feed all England. Yet in 1890
there WAS so little wheat in America
a famine caused the starvation Of
many in the larger European cities.
Every bushel of wheat gathered
before that time with the hand sickle
required three hours time Of a mans
time. The reaper harvests it in ten
minutes. a boy on self-binder can
cut and bind as much as twelve men
could with the scythe.
The reaper moved the bread line
along together with the railroads. 1t
went west just one click ahead of the
railroads, which built up to the edge
of the big wheat fields creeping to the
west and north.
The farmer early in the century was
against improvements The fewer i'm
provements he had the more bitterly
he fought against the use of machinery
in farming. Memories Of the past and
the manner in which his father work.
ed, blotted out the vision of better
things for the future. He harvested
his grain with the sickle.
Who Invented the Reaper?
If the crop was good every member
of the family hustled to the fields.
Wheat is crop that refuses to wait
on labor. If not harvested when ripe,
it falls and is wasted. What the fam
lily could not gather by working day
and night, rotted in the fields. Bush
els of good wheat lay wasted in this
way every season, because of the scar
city of labor at harvecting time.
When the reaper was first invented,
and by whom, must remain forever
yelled in mystery. There is no au-
thentic account Of the first reaper,
even after eighty-four years of con-
testing for the honor. 1t lies between
Cyrus Mccormick and Obed Hussey.
Both claim it and the long fights
which followed the granting of the
patents had a direct result upon the
modern reaper because of the various
improvements it brought about.
HuSSey was a sailor with an invent
i've turn of mind and took out pat
ent for his reaper in 1881. He was at
work in his little shop on machine
for making pins when a pessimistic
farmer came along and watched him.
IF you could invent a machine that
would cut wheat you might do some
good to humanity" suggested the far
mer, and Hussey dropped the pin ma
chine and began on the idea for the
reaper.
The McCormicks Never Let Up.
In the meantime young Mccormick
had been at work on reaper, al
though his patent was NOT taken out
until 1894. His father had attempt
ed such a machine and failed signal
". But young Mccormick took up
the idea and patiently toiled over it
until he had a machine that would
work. Like Hussey, the first trials of
the machine met with jeering insults
from the farmers and laborers, who
feared the machine would deprive
them of work. The first time McCor-
rick made u trial of his new machine
in the wheat field of a neighbor, he
was stopped after the first round on
the preteXt that the machine was rat
Ting all the heads from the wheat.
politician named Taylor, who was
passing, heard the controversy and
invited Mccormick into his wheat
field near by to make Il trial. 1t was
so ripe that the heads were falling;
but the reaper successfully cut six
acres before sunset and commanded
respectful hearing from the men who
watched the trial.
The Machine Behind the Armies.
The London Times refused to believe
such Il machine could do the work, and
when invited to watch a demonstra-
tion of the first machine taken to Eng
land, called it "a cross between an
Ashley chariot, a wheelbarrow and
flying machine"
Only three or four reapers were
made in those first years. Facilities
for making them were lacking. They
made them one at a time and hauled
them about the country until sold.
Yet during the civil war, thirty years
after, the reaperS at first so devised by
llt liTIlleIS, tlldDltu lllt "
feed two large armies and to send al
most three times as much wheat as
usual to other nations.
During the RusSo-Japan war troop
train in Russia was ordered to await
the passing of heavily loaded freight
train. Infuriated generals sent tele-
grams of protest to headquarters, in
quiring why hurrying troops must
await the pleasure of freight trains
They were curtly told the freight
trains meant bread for the army. They
were loaded with American harvest
ers hurrying to the harvest fields.
The World Buys American Reapers.
Laborcrs at first smashed the Hussey
and Mccormick machines, so intense
was their opposition. But rulers OF
nations have left national affairs to
watch the operations of the American
harvester. The shah of Persia and the
sultan of Turkey bought reapers ut the
Chicago Worlds Fair and took them
home as an example of American en-
terprise.
Scarcely eighty-four years ago the
farmer laboriously gathered his grain
by hand-bound it by hand-loaded it
by hand. The women of his family
helped in the fields and then hurried
to the house at meal time to cook for
the hungry force Of workers, all using
Of n 10