C. Weems, who I believe was the owner of it; and was
so much pleased with its performance that I ordered one from you in
the following year, 1838, which you set in motion for me. It worked
most admirably, and fully met my expectations; _as it has done from
that early period to the present day_.

"In a loose way, I estimated that in the saving of labor, and grain
from shattering, it nearly or quite paid for itself the first
harvest. Since then the machine has been much improved.

"Up to the time I purchased, very few had been used in this State.
The first, as I have always understood, was bought by that
intelligent and enterprising farmer, Gen. Tench Tilghman, of
Oxford, Talbot County. In 1838, Col. Edward Lloyd, of 'Wye,' Talbot
Co., the largest wheat grower in Maryland, and myself, as above
mentioned, availed ourselves of your invention; but I did not hear
of any other orders for it in this State. It came, like most other
agricultural implements, slowly into use; and I fear has not fairly
compensated you for the labor and ingenuity bestowed upon it. This,
however, is too often the fate of discoverers and inventors; and
others reap the fruits of their toil and genius. I have long
thought that governments were unjust to inventors; and could never
understand why a man has not the same right of property to a
machine conceived in his head, and constructed by his hands, as to
that acquired in any other manner. The same that a farmer has to
the lands he owns.

"Very respectfully, y'r ob't serv't,

"GEO. W. HUGHES."

"Oxford, Md.,
"Sept. 22d, 1854.

"_Mr. Obed Hussey:_

"Dear Sir:--I recently received from the Commissioner of Patents
the Report on Mechanics for 1853, and have examined with much
interest the descriptions of what claim to be improvements in the
Reaping Machine.

"I was rather surprised to find that so many of then were almost
identical with the notions which were tried and rejected during
the season you spent with me nearly twenty years ago; when for the
first time (I believe) a reaper was used throughout our entire
harvest, on a farm as large as six hundred acres.

"You had just then arrived from Cincinnati with two machines--one
a reaper, and the other a reaper and mower.

"They were exhibited publicly at Oxford and Easton, and their