sely and
critically. It may also be right to remark that we have no private or
pecuniary interest whatever, in these, or any other patent claims.

[Sidenote: Attempts of the Ancients]

As to the theoretical portion of the business, the enquiry might be
greatly extended; indeed for past centuries, as we have imperfect
accounts of Reaping Machines being used by the Romans. If the ancients
were successful in making a practical implement for Reaping, by horse,
or ox power, as some ancient writers assert, we certainly have no
correct and reliable account of a machine that would be considered
efficient or useful at the present day; a machine to save or tear off
the heads only--as described by Pliny and Palladius--would more properly
be termed a gathering machine, and not at all suited to the wants and
habits of modern farmers.

[Illustration: Silver medal won by Mr. Hussey with the Reaper at New
York in 1852.]

[Sidenote: English Endeavors]

It was not until near the close of the past, and within the present
century, so far as we can learn, that the subject again claimed much
attention of the inventive talent of either this, or foreign countries.
Of some half a dozen or more attempts made in Great Britain, and
recorded in Loudon's Encyclopedia of Agriculture, the Edinburg
Encyclopedia, and other similar works, all, or nearly all, relied either
upon scythes or cutters, with a rotary motion, or vibrating shears. And
although there was "go ahead" about them in one sense of the term, as it
was intended for the "cart to go before the horse," none of them
appeared to have gained, or certainly not long retained, the confidence
of the farmers; for at the exhibition of the "World's Fair in London,"
the whole Kingdom could not raise a Reaping Machine;--a practical
implement which was considered worth using and exhibiting.

[Sidenote: English Failure]

That the idea was obsolete there, and had been unsuccessful, is clearly
proved by the fact that the English journals and writers of that period,
without a single exception, spoke of the American Reapers--after the
trials!--as "completely successful"--"taking every one by surprise"--"their
reaping machines have astonished our agriculturists"--"few subjects have
created a greater sensation in the agricultural world than the recent
introduction into the country of the reaping machines"--the "curiosity of
the crowd was irrepressible to witness such a novelty, even to stopping
the mac