"On the 6th July, 1835, you brought to Palmyra two of your machines, and they were put in operation near this place--one in a meadow between here and Philadelphia, and one in the heavy grass in Marion City bottom.[4] The machines did cut well. I was the editor of the _Missouri Courier_, from the month of November, 1833, until 1838, and brought your machine before the public; it excited much attention, and its performance was highly satisfactory. The results of the trials were published in the paper by me in August or September, 1835. I knew of the capacity of the machine, and that it did so execute in the bottom three acres an hour. In this I cannot be mistaken, for I felt at the time the deepest interest in the success of the machine. Mr. McElroy is dead, where you boarded, and also Samuel Muldrow and James Muldrow. Still I will inquire if any persons can be found who were present. [4] Both of these machines were sold to Wm. Muldrow, Agent, of Marion College, Marion County, Mo. "I know the results, and recollect distinctly the reception the machines met with, and the prices, to wit, $150 each. Muldrow bought another for $500--which was a whirling wheel. You recollect it; it never run any. Yours, I know it was said then, would cut off brush large enough for a hoop-hole. Court is now in session, but as soon as I can ascertain the witnesses (at the exhibition) I will write you further. But my recollection is distinct, from the relations existing between us, my interest in machinery generally, and my position as editor of the only paper of this section of country. "As ever, your friend, "EDWIN G. PRATT." [Sidenote: Mode of Transportation] In 1836 O. Hussey visited Maryland at the written solicitation of the Board of Trustees of _The Maryland Agricultural Society_, for the Eastern Shore. The fame of his reaping exploits in the State of New York, and the far West, had reached the East; though with something like a "snail's pace." We had not then the Magnetic Telegraph, which with lightning speed enables the East to _talk_ with the West; nor even the "iron horse," by whose speed and power, the reaper that cut a large crop of wheat in Maryland, could within the same week cut another equally large in the valley of the Mississippi; but it then required some two to three _years_ to prepare the public mind for the reception of the machine here; and owing to the limited means of the inventor, the transportation from place to place was often done by a single horse; accompanied by the inventor foot-sore and weary from walking hundreds of miles! [Sidenote: An Inventor's Difficulties]