Russia would be famine-swept from end to end, in spite of her 30,000,000
farmers and her illimitable acres, if she had to depend wholly upon the
sickle and the scythe.

But the story is by no means ended with Europe. To-day the sun never sets
and the season never closes for American harvesters. They are reaping the
fields of Argentina in January, Upper Egypt in February, East India in
March, Mexico in April, China in May, Spain in June, Iowa in July, Canada
in August, Sweden in September, Norway in October, South Africa in
November, and Burma in December. It is always harvest somewhere. The
ripple of the ripened grain goes round the world and the American
harvester follows it.

Even from this incomplete list one may begin to understand how tremendous
is the task that the International Harvester Company has assumed in
undertaking to cater to the farmers of fifty countries--to adapt itself to
their various customs.

In Holland, for instance, where the grass is short and thick, a mower must
cut as close as a barber's clippers; and in Denmark, where moss grows
under the grass, it must cut so high as to leave the moss untouched. The
careful Germans of Wisconsin will buy a light harvester, such as the
"Milwaukee"; but in Argentina a light machine would be racked into junk in
a season. The Argentinians, having raised cattle for generations, rush to
the harvest in cowboy fashion. It is the joy of their lives to hitch six
or eight horses to a big "header," crack the long whip, and dash at full
gallop over the rough ground.

There are small horses in Russia, big ones in France, oxen in India, and
camels in Siberia, and the harvesters must be adapted to each. Certain
backward countries demand a reaper without a reel. Australia must have a
monster machine called a "stripper," which combs off the heads of the
grain. California and Argentina, because of their dry climate, can use
"headers," a combination of reaper and thrashing-machine. And so the
American harvester has become a citizen of the world, adopting the
national dress of each country.

The men who are dealing hand to hand with these problems are no longer the
Reaper Kings, personally introducing their harvesters through royalty and
nobility. These have been succeeded by an army of fifteen hundred American
harvester experts. They are all salaried, most of them by the
"International"; and their work is to put the farmers of the world to
school. They are the teachers of