"Sir--I beg to trouble you with a few particulars of Mr. Hussey's American Reaping Machine, which I yesterday saw working in a field near Barnardcastle. I am not a farmer, and of course cannot be thoroughly _au fait_ at describing an agricultural implement, nor am I sufficiently versed in mechanics to explain to you the construction of the machine in all its details, but of the result I can speak, and that with confidence. "Drawn by two horses, a man seated on the near side horse as driver, this wonderful implement was drawn with perfect ease, at more than the rate of three miles an hour, round and round a field, partly in wheat and partly in barley, cutting a breadth of corn in its progress with a regularity and evenness that was surprising. No straggling stalks of corn were left, none of the slovenly irregular work too often seen where manual labor is employed was to be discovered; on the contrary, the field after shearing, looked nearly as smooth and even as a kitchen floor or turnpike road. The farmer has now no longer occasion to be behind the reapers, dinning in their ears, 'shear low"--'now do shear low;' for this machine, with a very simple adjustment, will cut the corn as low as he can possibly require. A seat on the machine is provided for a man, who, with a large rake, and with motion resembling the pushing of a punt, removes the corn from the machine as it is cut, and leaves it for the binders to put together in sheafs. "The assistance of two men and two horses are thus all that is required to draw and to guide this wonderful sickle--and so manned, it will cut with the ease and regularity I have described, from perhaps ten to twelve acres in the working day. Nor as far as I could see, or learn from the observation of others, does there appear to be any drawback against its general adoption. Its price (L21) is not exorbitant--its construction is not so complex as to cause a fear of frequent repairs being required; men of the common run of agricultural laborers are quite competent to go with it, and the work of drawing it is not distressing to the horses. Neither does the nature of the ground appear to be much an object, for it traveled as well over ridge and furrow as it did upon a level.