"Wheatland, Del.,
"July 21, 1845.
"Mr. Hussey:
"Dear Sir:—I have just finished cutting my oats; I finished cutting my wheat on the 28th of June, having cut over 160 acres, excepting what was cut by a cradle in opening tracks for the horses and rounding the corners so that the machine might sweep round without loss of time in turning, which it did with ease and certainty, cutting more than twenty acres a day on an average. A part of the wheat was so heavy as to require three active shockers to keep up with the cutting; the whole cost of all necessary repairs 31¼ cents for the harvest.
"Of the two machines which I purchased of you I used the large one, having sold the small one to Richard Millwood, who rents the farm of Dr. Noble. Strange as it may appear, I could find no landholder in the vicinity who had enterprise enough to risk the purchase of that machine until they could see it work; but after the performance was once witnessed, the impression it made was such as to justify me in ordering you to have ten ready by next harvest for New Castle County, Del. Mr. Millwood's wheat was very heavy, one measured acre having sixty dozen sheaves upon it, and the whole cutting time on the forty acre field was but two days, making for the small machine a full average of twenty acres per day, without any repairing or accident. None of the hands who worked it had ever seen such a machine before those you sent to me. My crop has not all passed through the half bushel yet, but it will fall but little short of 3,000 bushels—expect it will all be in market to-morrow.
"In conversation with Col. Vandergrift, the present owner of the Reaper you sold to the St. George and Appoquinomick Agricultural Society, in 1838, he told me that he had cut about 700 acres of wheat and oats with it since he owned it, and up to that time the cost of repairs had been $1.25 for every hundred acres cut. It was then in good repair.
"Yours,
"JOHN JONES."
"Jefferson County, Va.,
"August 9th, 1845.