though with something
like a snail's pace," as new things did two-thirds of a century ago. The
machine was operated at Oxford, Talbot County, on the 1st of July, in
the presence of the Board and a considerable number of other gentlemen.
Its performance was perfect, as it cut every spear of grain, collected
it in bunches of the proper size for sheaves and laid it straight and
even for the binder. On the 12th of July a public exhibition was made at
Easton, under the direction of the Board; several hundred persons,
principally farmers, being present. This same machine was sold to Mr.
Tench Tilghman, for whom it cut 180 acres of wheat, oats and barley
during that season. The report of the Board of Trustees of the Maryland
Agricultural Society stated that "three mules of medium size worked in
it constantly with as much ease as in a drag harrow. They moved with
equal facility in a walk or trot." In 1837 the machines were sold in
various parts of the country. One at Hornewood, Md., one at West River,
and several others throughout the state. One of the machines sold in
1838 to the St. George's and Appoquinomick Ag. Society cut several
hundred acres of grain, up to 1845, and was then in good repair. In all
this time the cost for repairs was only 1-1/4c per acre. The popularity
of the machine became so pronounced that other inventors were given
courage, and those who before had failed were prompted to pick up their
work where they had dropped it or begin on newer lines.

[Illustration: Silver medal awarded to Mr. Hussey for the Reaper at
Baltimore in 1845.]

[Sidenote: A Hussey-McCormick Contest]

In 1843 we find that Hussey's machine was in a field-contest with one
brought in by Cyrus H. McCormick of Rockbridge County, Va. We say
brought in, because the claim that it was in fact invented and made by
_Robert McCormick_ seems to be quite well founded. (Memorial of
Robert McCormick.) The contest took place on the farm of a Mr.
Hutchinson, about four miles above the city of Richmond. Mr. Hussey had,
for a number of years, been building two sizes of machines, and at the
first day's trial was obliged to use a small one because his only large
machine within reach was elsewhere occupied. The majority of the
self-appointed committee of bystanders reported in favor of McCormick's
machine, but Mr. Roane, one of them, who signed very reluctantly, later
bought a Hussey machine. A few days after, at Tree Hill, Mr. Hussey was
present with h