Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work

by Herbert Newton Casson

Moving at once from one obstacle to another, as McCormick did throughout the whole course of his life, he now began to create the best possible system of selling his Reapers to the farmers. This he had to do, for the reason that there was no means at that time whereby he could offer them for sale. The village blacksmith was too busy at his anvil to become an agent. The village storekeeper was not a mechanic, and was too careful of his reputation among the farmers to offer for sale a machine that he did not understand. Therefore, McCormick bent all his energies to this new task of devising a mode of action. He began to develop what he was apt to call "the finger-ends of the business." And he created a new species of commercial organization which is by many thought to be fully as remarkable as his invention of the Reaper.

First, he gave a Written Guarantee with every machine. He had conceived of this inducement as early as 1842. He "warranted the performance of the Reaper in every respect," and by this means made seven sales in that year. In 1848 he had his guarantee printed like an advertisement, with a picture of the Reaper at the top, and blank spaces for the farmer, the agent, and two witnesses to sign. The price of the machine was to be $120. The farmer was to pay $30 cash, and the balance in six months, on condition that the Reaper would cut one and a half acres an hour, that it would scatter less grain than the grain-cradle, that it was well made, and that the raking off could easily be done from a raker's seat. If the Reaper failed to fulfil these promises, it was to be brought back and the $30 was to be refunded.

This idea of giving a free trial, and returning the money to any dissatisfied customer, was at that time new and revolutionary. To-day it is the code of the department store, and even the mail-order establishments are in many instances adopting it. It has become one of the higher laws of the business world. It has driven that discreditable maxim, "Let the buyer beware," out of all decent commercialism. To McCormick, who had never studied the selfish economic theories of his day, there was no reason for any antagonism between buyer and seller. He trusted his Reaper and he trusted the farmers. And he built his business foursquare on this confidence.

Second, he sold his Reapers at a Known Price. He announced the price in newspapers and posters. This, too, has since become an established rule in business; but it was not so sixty years ago. The Oriental method of chaffering and bargaining was largely in vogue. The buyer got as high a price as he could in each case. Among merchants, A. T. Stewart was probably the first to abolish this practice of haggling, and to mark his goods in plain figures. And in the selling of farm machinery, it was McCormick who laid down the principle of equal prices to all and special rebates to none—a principle which has been very generally followed ever since, except during periods of over-strenuous competition.

Third, he was one of the first American business men who believed heartily in a policy of Publicity. As early as September 28, 1833, he began to advertise his Reaper; and his advertisement was nearly a column in length. Also, in the same paper, he had a half-column advertisement of his hillside plow. This was publicity on a large scale, according to the ideas of advertising that were then prevalent. Even George Washington, when advertising an extensive land scheme in 1773, had not thought of using more than half a column of a Baltimore paper.

McCormick was an efficient advertiser, too, as well as an enterprising one. When he talked to farmers, he knew what to say. He told the story of what one of his Reapers had done, and named the time and the farm and the farmers. He made great use of the argument that the Reaper pays for itself, and showed that it would cost the farmer less to buy it than not to buy it.

Among the many testimonials that he got from farmers the one that pleased him most, and which he scattered broadcast, was one in which a farmer said: "My Reaper has more than paid for itself in one harvest."

In 1849, when the rush to the new gold mines of California began, he was quick to see his opportunity. This sudden exodus of a hundred thousand men to the Pacific coast meant much to him, and he knew it. It meant a decrease in the number of farm laborers and an increase in the amount of money in circulation. More than this, it meant that Chicago was no longer a city of the Far West. It was central. It was the link between the banks and factories of the East and the gold mines and prairies of the West. So McCormick quickly prepared an elaborate advertisement, warning the farmers that labor would now become scarce and expensive, that the coming grain crop promised to be a large one, and giving the names and addresses of ninety-two farmers who were now using his machines.

The fourth factor in the McCormick System was the appointment of a Responsible Agent and the building of a storage warehouse at every competitive point. He did not wait for the business to grow. He pushed it. He thrust it forward by sending an agent to every danger-spot on the firing-line. As one of his competitors complained, in an 1848 lawsuit, McCormick "flooded the country with his machines." He knew that many farmers would be undecided until the very hour of harvest, when there would be no time to get a Reaper from Chicago; and therefore he had supplies of machines stored in various parts of the country. By 1849 he had nineteen of these agencies.