And what does it all mean—this federation of thirteen factory cities—this coordination of muscle and mind and millions—this arduous development of a new art, whereby a group of mechanics can take a wagon-load of iron ore and a tree, and fashion them into a shapely automaton that has the power of a dozen farmers?
It means bread. It means hunger-insurance for the whole human race. As we shall see in the next chapter, it means that the famine problem has been solved, not only for the United States, but for all the civilised nations of the world.
CHAPTER IV
The American Harvester Abroad
The first American reapers that went to Europe were given a royal welcome. There were two of them—one made by McCormick and one made by Hussey, and they were exhibited before Albert Edward, the Prince Consort of England, at a World’s Fair in London in 1851.
There had been reapers invented in England before this date, but none of them would reap. All the inventors were mere theorists. They designed their reapers for ideal grain in ideal fields. One of them was a preacher, the Rev. Patrick Bell; another, Henry Ogle, was a school-teacher. James Dobbs, an actor, invented a machine that cut artificial grain on the stage. And a machinist named Gladstone made a reaper that also worked well until he tried it on real grain in a real field.
But the exhibition of the American reaper in London did not result in its immediate adoption. There was little demand for harvesters in England fifty years ago; and in other European countries there was none at all. Farm labour was cheap—forty cents a day in England and five cents a day in Russia; and the rush of labourers into factory cities had not yet begun.
In the years following 1851, the American reaper did, however, become popular among the very rich. It became the toy of kings and titled landowners. By 1864 Europe was buying our farm machinery to the extent of $600,000. This was less than she buys to-day in a week; but it was a beginning. Several foreign manufacturers began at this time to make reapers, notably in Toronto, Sheffield, Paris, and Hamburg. This competition spurred on the American reaper agents, who were already taking advantage of the interest shown by royalty in the American reaper. And from the close of the Civil War on, there was an exciting race, generally neck and neck, between Cyrus H. McCormick, Sr., and Walter A. Wood, to see who could vanquish the most of these foreign imitators, and bag the greatest number of kings and nobilities.