Lutfring said to him, "Now, Baron Hahn, we
are all barons in my country, but you'll pardon me if I do this work in
my shirt-sleeves," the baron was so taken by surprise that he offered to
hold Lutfring's coat. Half an hour later he was at work himself, doing
physical labour for the first time in his life. And when the harvester had
been well launched upon its sea of yellow grain, he took Lutfring--the
baron from Wisconsin--to dinner with him in the castle, and spent the
greater part of the afternoon showing him the family portraits.

From such beginnings the harvester has advanced, to make in Russia the
greatest conquests it has achieved anywhere. More business is now being
done in the land of the Czar than was done with the whole world in 1885.
One recent shipment, so large as to break all records, was carried from
Chicago to New York on 3,000 freight-cars, and transferred to a chartered
fleet of nine steam-ships, $5,000,000 worth of hunger-insurance.

During the Russo-Japanese War a striking incident occurred that showed the
respect of the government for American harvesters. Several troop-trains
that were on their way to the front were suddenly side-tracked, to make
way for a long freight train, loaded with heavy boxes. The war generals
and grand dukes in charge of the troops were furious. Why should their
trains be pushed to one side and delayed, to expedite a mere consignment
of freight? They telegraphed their indignation to St. Petersburg, and
received a reply from Count Witte. "The freight train must pass," he said.
"It is loaded with American harvesters. _It means bread._"

As a result of this attitude, there are now some provinces in southern
Russia where not even Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson would find
much fault with the farming. I have secured the figures for the Province
of Kuban, in the Caucasus. Here there are 3,500 thrashing-machines, 5,000
grain-drills, 37,000 harvesters, 50,000 harrows, 70,000 grain-cleaners,
and 65,000 cultivators. This is a region where, one generation ago, were
only the wooden plough, the sickle, and the flail.

There is, to be sure, still a dense mass of Russians whose yearly habit it
is to wait until their wheat is dead ripe, then in a few days of frantic
labour to cut down half of it with sickles, leaving the rest to rot in the
fields. And in one Caucasian province, richer in its soil than Iowa, it
is the custom of the wandering natives to move every three years to a ne