=138. Making Bread More Plentiful for Millions.= It was only natural
that Cyrus H. McCormick should be interested in inventions. His father,
Robert McCormick, had fitted up many labor-saving devices for use on
his farm. He tried to make a reaper, but it was a failure.
One hundred years ago the common method of harvesting in this country
was by "cradling" the grain. For this, a scythe with prongs on its
handle was used. The prongs caught the grain and laid it in rows, ready
to tie.
[Illustration: CYRUS HALL MᶜCORMICK]
Cyrus Hall McCormick was born at Walnut Grove, West Virginia, in 1809.
The boy was always interested in inventing. When fifteen, he invented
a better grain cradle. At twenty-one he made a hillside plow that
surpassed his father's. His great invention, the reaper, was made the
following year. His friends all laughed at his machine, but he went on
perfecting it. All his life Cyrus McCormick had to meet ridicule or
bitter competition. But he came of Scotch-Irish fighting stock. He had
the determination which battles its way to success.
In 1834 the reaper was patented. It was shown at the World's Fair in
London in 1851. It won a prize as the most valuable thing in the whole
fair.
[Illustration: THE FIRST MᶜCORMICK REAPER
_After a model of the original reaper_]
Cyrus H. McCormick started to manufacture his machine at Chicago in
1847. The demand for reapers grew rapidly. When the Civil War called
out one man in three from the North, there were enough reapers in use
to equal the labor of one million slaves. The North not only fed itself
but sent great quantities of grain to England. Cyrus McCormick's great
invention did much to help the North abolish slavery.
[Illustration: HARVESTING WITH MODERN MACHINERY]
=139. Reapers for the West.= The invention of the reaper made it
possible for the West to be quickly settled. Before, farmers raised
only the few acres they could be sure of harvesting. Grain is lost,
if not cut a few days after it is ripe. The wide prairies of the West
could not be harvested by the old methods. Now on these great plains
huge reapers drawn by engines sometimes cut forty-eight feet of grain
in a single swathe.
Because of the labor it saves, McCormick's invention has made the cost
of bread low for millions of people. With hand-reaping half the people
of the country would be busy producing nothing but bread. In the past
most nations were never free from the danger of starvation. Now the
world produces enough for all.
A noted French society, when it elected McCormick a member, said that
he had "done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living
man."