uary 25th, 1848.

"_To the Editor of the American Farmer:_

"Dear Sir:--Some months ago I received a letter from you, making
enquiries of me relative to Hussey's Reaping Machine. When your
letter reached me I was on the eve of leaving home for the summer,
and since my return home, my engagements have been of such a
character as to cause me until the present to neglect replying to
it.

"I have used one of Hussey's machines one season, and though under
circumstances not very favorable for the machine, I take pleasure
in stating that its operation was satisfactory. During my harvest,
which was about three weeks' duration, this machine was kept
constantly at work, with the exception of a day and a half, yet I
did not ascertain how many acres it would reap. Mr. Collins, of
Lake Scuppernong also used one last season, and from him I learned
that he cut upwards of twenty acres a day.

"There is certainly much less wheat left in the field by one of
these machines than is by the ordinary method of reaping by the
scythe or reap hook; it cuts close, lays the straw smoothly, thus
rendering tying of it in sheaves much easier.

"I have witnessed McCormick's, which I consider _a poor
affair_, and _meriting no consideration_ except a dissent
from me. Many of this last kind of reaper found their way here a
few years ago; they now, or rather their remains, may be seen
lying in the field whence they will never be removed.

"THOS. D. WARREN."

[Illustration: Modern Rear-Delivery Reaper.
(From "Who Invented the Reaper?" by R. B. Swift.)]

From the Richmond Planter.

HUSSEY'S AND M'CORMICK'S REAPERS

"It is very painful to be compelled to inflict a private injury in the
discharge of a public duty; upon a particular system of cultivation we
can talk and write without restraint; but when we are called on to
discuss the merits of an invention, upon which the fortunes of the
originator may absolutely depend, it is a much more responsible and
delicate office. We are aware, too, that in introducing a subject of the
kind, we are opening the floodgates of a controversy that is often hard
to close; we have had the strongest evidence of that fact in the
controversy that once occurred in this paper between Messrs. McCormick
and Hussey, and yet it is to the relative merits of the reaping machines
of these two gentlemen that we are compelled