%411. The Harvester.%--Much the same can be said of the McCormick reaper. It was invented and patented as early as 1831; but it was hard work to persuade the farmer to use it. Not a machine was sold till 1841. During 1841, 1842, 1843, such as were made in the little blacksmith shop near Steel's Tavern, Virginia, were disposed of with difficulty. Every effort to induce manufacturers to make the machine was a failure. Not till McCormick had gone on horseback among the farmers of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and secured written orders for his reapers, did he persuade a firm in Cincinnati to make them. In 1845, five hundred were manufactured; in 1850, three thousand. In 1851 McCormick placed one on exhibition at the World's Fair in London, and astonished the world with its performance. To-day two hundred thousand are turned out annually, and without them the great grain fields of the middle West and the far West would be impossible. The harvester has cheapened the cost of bread, and benefited the whole human race. %412. The Telegraph.%--Think, again, what would be our condition if every telegraph line in the world were suddenly pulled down. Yet the telegraph, like the reaper and the sewing machine, was introduced slowly. Samuel F. B. Morse got his patent in 1837; and for seven years, helped by Alfred Vail, he struggled on against poverty. In 1842 he had but thirty-seven cents in the world. But perseverance conquers all things; and with thirty thousand dollars, granted by Congress, the first telegraph line in the world was built in 1844 from Baltimore to Washington. In 1845 New York and Philadelphia were connected; but as wires could not be made to work under water, the messages were received on the New Jersey side of the Hudson and carried to New York by boat. By 1856 the telegraph was in use in the most populous states. Some forty companies, but one of which paid dividends, competed for the business. This was ruinous; and in 1856 a union of Western companies was formed and called the Western Union Telegraph Company. To-day it has 21,000 offices, sends each year some 58,000,000 messages, receives about $23,000,000, and does seven eighths of all the telegraph business in the United States.