Obed Hussey, Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap
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Obed Hussey, Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap
Harvesting machinery; Hussey, Obed, 1792-1860
"Of the two machines which I purchased of you I used the large
one, having sold the small one to Richard Millwood, who rents the
farm of Dr. Noble. Strange as it may appear, I could find no
_landholder_ in the vicinity who had enterprise enough to
risk the purchase of that machine until they could see it work;
but after the performance was once witnessed, the impression it
made was such as to justify me in ordering you to have ten ready
by next harvest for New Castle County, Del. Mr. Millwood's wheat
was very heavy, one measured acre having sixty dozen sheaves upon
it, and the whole cutting time on the forty acre field was but two
days, making for the small machine a full average of twenty acres
per day, without any repairing or accident. None of the hands who
worked it had ever seen such a machine before those you sent to
me. My crop has not all passed through the half bushel yet, but it
will fall but little short of 3,000 bushels--expect it will all be
in market to-morrow.
"In conversation with Col. Vandergrift, the present owner of the
Reaper you sold to the St. George and Appoquinomick Agricultural
Society, in 1838, he told me that he had cut about 700 acres of
wheat and oats with it since he owned it, and up to that time the
cost of repairs had been $1.25 for every hundred acres cut. It was
then in good repair.
"Yours,
"JOHN JONES."
"Jefferson County, Va.,
"August 9th, 1845.
"_To Mr. Obed Hussey:_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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