soon laid it aside.

We will now examine another invention patented by C. H. McCormick, in
1847. We here assert and challenge a denial, that from 12 to 14 years
after the alleged invention of a Reaper by C. H. McCormick in 1831, and
from 9 to 12 years after the date of his patent in 1834 his _raker
walked_ by the side of his machine, while Hussey's raker _rode on the
machine as they always had done_ since his first machine that cut the
grain like "a thing of life" in Hamilton County, Ohio, in 1833. Yet, in
1847, C. H. McCormick takes out a patent for the _raker's seat_! this
_was_ a "novelty" and well worth a patent!

[Sidenote: The Raker's Seat]

In two trials of reaping machines by Hussey and McCormick in the same
fields in Virginia, in 1843, one at Hutchinson's, and the other on the
plantation of the late Senator Roane, at Tree Hill, near Richmond,
McCormick's raker _walked_ by the side of the machine, while Hussey's
_rode_ on the machine, in the same manner as he did just exactly ten
years before.

We have three letters from the late Hon. William H. Roane referring to
these trials, and ordering a machine from Hussey, after witnessing the
operation of both. Two of the letters he desired might not be published;
but says in one of them, "I have no objection to your stating publicly
that a _member_ of the committee who made the report last summer at
_Hutchinson's_, which was published a few days thereafter, witnessed a
fuller and fairer trial between the two machines, and has in consequence
ordered one of yours. * * * What I have said above of ---- is intended
only for your eye _confidentially_, to show you in part the character and
probable motives of the opposition your Reaper has met. Let what I say be
private, as I have a great objection to going into the newspapers. Should
you ever want it, you can have from me the strongest public testimonial
of my good opinion of your machine."

The third letter, giving this "testimonial," was published in the
American Farmer in January, 1844. As the Raker's Seat--the main feature
of C. H. McCormick's patent of 1847--comes fairly within the scope of
this enquiry as to priority of invention, we re-publish Senator Roane's
letter and also furnish other testimony on the subject.

"_To the Editor of the American Farmer:_

"As the question of _which is the best Reaping Machine_ is of
no little importance to wheat growers, it is highly necessary that
they be rig