with a sickle in the
valleys of Wales. About forty years ago, when he had become an American,
he bought a reaper and a tent, and set out to earn his fortune. By working
twenty hours a day, he had earned enough money, by 1881, to begin making
reapers of his own, at Plano; and he built up a large business.

The General Manager of this big anti-famine organisation is a young
Illinoisan, named C. S. Funk. "He is the central man," says Perkins. No
other Chicagoan of his age--he is only thirty-five--has pushed up so
quickly to so high a place, with nothing to help him except his own grit
and ability. To-day he manages a 65,000-man-power corporation; yet it is
very little more than twenty years since he was trudging six miles on a
hot July day, to ask for his first job in a hay-field. Young as he was, he
was then the support of a widowed mother, and there were seven children
younger than he.

His office, in which I was permitted to take notes for several days, is a
nerve-centre of the world. Everything that happens to the human race is
of interest to this alert young chancellor of the Harvester Company. A
drought in Argentina, the green bug in Kansas, a tariff campaign in
Australia, a shortage of farm labour in Egypt, a new railway in Southern
Russia, such are the bulletins that guide him through his day's work.

His wide-flung army is officered mainly by farmers' sons who had a knack
for business or for machinery. His assistant, Alex. Legge, is an ex-cowboy
from Nebraska. Before the era of peace and unity began, Funk and Legge had
fought each other in twenty states.

"Legge was one of the best fighters I ever knew," said Funk; "and I think
you might put him down as the most popular man in the company."

Maurice Kane, the company's Chief Improver, and a fine type of the
Irish-American, was born on a small farm near Limerick. He was a farm hand
in Wisconsin when he first saw a harvester, and he has pulled himself up
every inch of the way by his own abilities. A. E. Mayer, the first of an
army of forty thousand salesmen, was born on a farm in New York. He is a
sort of human Gatling gun, loaded with the experience of his trade. B. A.
Kennedy, the overlord of the thirteen factories, is a seasoned veteran who
can remember when he stood by the forge of a country blacksmith shop and
hammered out ploughs by hand. Only one of the company's generals, H. F.
Perkins, began life with such a luxury as a university education. He is in
c