owed to Patrick Bell cannot be known, but it is probable that all
had heard of his design if they had not seen his drawings or the machine
itself. The first of these inventors, Manning of New Jersey, drops out
of the story, for it is not known whether he ever made a machine other
than his model. More persistent was Obed Hussey of Cincinnati, who soon
moved to Baltimore to fight out the issue with McCormick. Hussey was an
excellent mechanic. He patented several improvements to his machine and
received high praise for the efficiency of the work. But he was soon
outstripped in the race because he was weak in the essential qualities
which made McCormick the greatest figure in the world of agricultural
machinery. McCormick was more than a mechanic; he was a man of vision;
and he had the enthusiasm of a crusader and superb genius for business
organization and advertisement. His story has been told in another
volume of this series.*

* "The Age of Big Business", by Burton J. Hendrick.

Though McCormick offered reapers for sale in 1834, he seems to have
sold none in that year, nor any for six years afterwards. He sold two in
1840, seven in 1842, fifty in 1844. The machine was not really adapted
to the hills of the Valley of Virginia, and farmers hesitated to buy a
contrivance which needed the attention of a skilled mechanic. McCormick
made a trip through the Middle West. In the rolling prairies, mile after
mile of rich soil without a tree or a stone, he saw his future dominion.
Hussey had moved East. McCormick did the opposite; he moved West, to
Chicago, in 1847.

Chicago was then a town of hardly ten thousand, but McCormick foresaw
its future, built a factory there, and manufactured five hundred
machines for the harvest of 1848. From this time he went on from triumph
to triumph. He formulated an elaborate business system. His machines
were to be sold at a fixed price, payable in installments if desired,
with a guarantee of satisfaction. He set up a system of agencies to
give instruction or to supply spare parts. Advertising, chiefly by
exhibitions and contests at fairs and other public gatherings, was
another item of his programme. All would have failed, of course, if he
had not built good machines, but he did build good machines, and was
not daunted by the Government's refusal in 1848 to renew his original
patent. He decided to make profits as a manufacturer rather than accept
royalties as an inventor.

McCormick h