How McCormick Received a Medal
"That farmers who are acquainted with my reaper may understand why it failed to perform well in the hands of strangers at the Exhibition trial where McCormick got the medal, it will be necessary for me to say that when the machine was sent from Baltimore it was set to cut high. That when the inexperienced hands undertook to make it cut low, they pitched down the cutters by putting on the tongue, not knowing any other way to lower it. In doing so the hind part of the platform was of course raised high. In this condition the unpracticed raker failed to push the heavy wet wheat off up an inclined plane; and as a matter of course the machine choaked, and for the same reason that a mill will choak when the corn goes in faster than the meal comes out. A skillful hand would have lowered the cut at the axle of the machine, and brought the platform horizontal or lowest at the rear, as it should be in cutting wet grain.
"The following pages will show the result, the authenticity of which, if doubted, will be proved by the production of the originals in my possession.
"OBED HUSSEY.
"Baltimore, Md., Jan. 1, 1852."
From the Hull [England] Advertiser, September 5, 1851.
"At the annual meeting on Mr. Mechi's Farm at Tiptree Heath, a few weeks ago, a brief report of which appeared in the Hull Advertiser at the time, several reaping machines were tested, the result then being that one manufactured and invented by Mr. McCormick, of America, was the only one which was considered to have done its work properly. Amongst those tried was one invented and manufactured by Mr. O. Hussey, Baltimore, Md. (U. S.) which, in the opinion of gentlemen then present, did not fully accomplish the object in view. It should, however, be mentioned, that while Mr. McCormick's machine had on that trial the advantage of the superintendence of persons intimately acquainted with its mechanism, and who had been accustomed to the working of the machine for some years, Mr. Hussey's invention was (in the absence of the inventor) in the hands of persons entirely unacquainted with the proper mode of working it. Since then Mr. Hussey himself has come over to England in order to superintend his machine, and the result has been that it is now brought out to receive a thorough trial of its merits.
"The trial of Wednesday, however, was the best. It took place in a field belonging to Mr. Coskill, Grovehill Lane, Beverly. There was assembled during the day a great number of farmers and gentlemen interested in agriculture, who witnessed the trial with great interest.
"The wheat in this case was very much 'laid;' indeed in many places it was almost flat on the ground. It therefore afforded one of the best opportunities for judging of the capabilities of the machine under disadvantageous circumstances that could possibly occur.
"On the whole, the conclusion come to was that the reaping was done as well by machine as by hand. No one doubted for a moment that it would cut corn well where it was standing; but some farmers thought it would not equal the scythe where the corn was laid. The result, however, showed the contrary, and every person acknowledged that it had succeeded admirably. After cutting a large quantity of wheat, the machine was taken into another field, and after a slight alteration, set to work to cut clover. We understand that on the day before previous to coming to Hull, it had been tried on clover and cut it extremely well.