Hussey was an excellent mechanic. He patented several
improvements to his machine and received high praise for the
efficiency of the work. But he was soon outstripped in the race
because he was weak in the essential qualities which made
McCormick the greatest figure in the world of agricultural
machinery. McCormick was more than a mechanic; he was a man of
vision; and he had the enthusiasm of a crusader and superb genius
for business organization and advertisement. His story has been
told in another volume of this series.*
* "The Age of Big Business", by Burton J. Hendrick.
Though McCormick offered reapers for sale in 1834, he seems to
have sold none in that year, nor any for six years afterwards. He
sold two in 1840, seven in 1842, fifty in 1844. The machine was
not really adapted to the hills of the Valley of Virginia, and
farmers hesitated to buy a contrivance which needed the attention
of a skilled mechanic. McCormick made a trip through the Middle
West. In the rolling prairies, mile after mile of rich soil
without a tree or a stone, he saw his future dominion. Hussey had
moved East. McCormick did the opposite; he moved West, to
Chicago, in 1847.
Chicago was then a town of hardly ten thousand, but McCormick
foresaw its future, built a factory there, and manufactured five
hundred machines for the harvest of 1848.
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