A field test was conducted in this fashion: A committee of judges was appointed, and several acres of ripe grain were selected as the battle-field. After the field was marked off into equal sections, each reaper took its place. There were sometimes two reapers and sometimes forty. The signal was given. "Crack"--the horses leaped; the drivers shouted; and hundreds of farmers surged up and down in excited crowds. [Illustration: ASA S. BUSHNELL BENJAMIN H. WARDER HON. THOMAS MOTT OSBORNE DAVID M. OSBORNE] "All's fair in a field test," said the reaper agents who superintended these contests; though each man said it to himself. They were a hardy and reckless body of men, half cowboy, half mechanic, and no trick was too dangerous or too desperate for them. Often the feud was so bitter that bodyguards of big-fisted "bulldozers" were on the spot to protect the warrior of their tribe who was in danger. "I had four men with me once who together weighed 1,000 pounds," said A. E. Mayer, who is now the general of an army of 40,000 salesmen. In most tests the machines were shamefully abused. Self-binders were made to cut and bind stubble as though it were grain. Mowers were driven full tilt against stumps and hop-poles. Rival reapers were chained back to back and yanked apart by plunging horses. The warrior agents exposed the weak points in each other's machines. They photographed each other's breakdowns, and bragged to the limit of their vocabularies. They raised prices in one town and cut them in the next; for when their fighting blood was aroused--and that was often--they cared no more for profits than a small boy cares for his clothes. To give only one instance out of hundreds, here is a picture of a field test that I found in the diary of B. B. Clarke, of Madison, who is now the editor of the _American Thresherman_, but who was in the eighties a harvester fighter in Indiana. "We drove fourteen miles to the wheat-field, which was also the battle-field," he wrote, "and found a heavy crop of rank grain, wild pea vines, morning glories and other vegetation, which tested both machines to the limit. The bundles were twisted together by the vines into almost a continuous rope. After adjusting the machine, we had to 'open the field.' This is considered the most severe test, as the machine, the horses and all are in the grain. "A---- drove the team, a magnificent pair of big grays. McK---- watched the binder, while Y---- and I created sympathy for our cause among the farmers who had come to see the fight. With a crack of his whip and a shout to his team, A---- opened the ball. The machine was so crowded with grain and weeds that the sickle could not be heard fifty feet away. He cleared the first round without a stop. Then the other machine followed, but the driver, failing to recognise the necessity of fast driving, allowed his machine to clog, and lost the day. We received two hundred dollars in gold on the spot for our victorious binder.