Cyrus McCormick: The Ultimate Farmer

Do you have to pull a giant, heavy carriage with blades in back just for cutting grass? No, that is because Cyrus McCormick changed all of that. Cyrus McCormick was influential to the Industrial Revolution because he created the Horse Drawn Reaper, he also told farmers they didn’t have to pay when they bought the reaper. Now you don’t have to pull a Reaper, you push a lawn mower. Without Cyrus McCormick we would not have advanced farming technology. Cyrus McCormick, the "Father of Modern Agriculture," made one of the most significant contributions to the United States' prosperity, when he invented the horse-drawn reaper in 1831.



Cyrus Hall McCormick was born in 1809. He grew up on his family's 532-acre farm, "Walnut Grove", north of Lexington, Virginia. As a boy, McCormick had a talent for both agriculture and inventing. At the age of 15, he invented a lightweight cradle for carting harvested grain (1824). Meanwhile, McCormick's father, Robert, was working from time to time in the farm's smithy on an invention of his own, a horse-drawn reaping machine. When Robert McCormick finally gave up on producing a working model, in the early fall of 1831, his son took over the challenge. 

Using his father's incomplete model as a starting point, McCormick sketched out plans for a machine that would automatically cut, thresh and bundle grain while being pulled through a field by horses. Within six weeks --- before the 1831 harvest was over --- he had built, field-tested, remodelled, and successfully demonstrated to the public the world's first mechanical reaper. McCormick had singlehandedly increased farms' potential yield at least tenfold, with a minimum of effort by farmers. Astonishingly, they remained uninterested or at least unconvinced: for nine years, sales were virtually zero.




Because his reaper enabled much fewer farmers to produce much more grain, Cyrus McCormick not only transformed agriculture, but also diversified American industry. In 1831, 90% of the US population was involved in farming; today, only 2% of the population produces more food than the country can consume. The machines manufactured by McCormick's company and its successor, International Harvester Co., which now harvest hundreds of acres a day, have enabled the vast majority of Americans to apply their talent and energy to fields like engineering, medicine, and the arts.


Farmers were leery of change, and were put off by a machine that would later be described as a "contraption seemingly a cross between a wheelbarrow, a chariot, and a flying machine." Undaunted, McCormick spent ten years making improvements, earning his first patent along the way (1834). He also utilized novel business practices, including lenient credit for purchases, written performance guarantees ("15 acres a day"), readily available replacement parts, and advertising that educated farming communities about the benefits of technology.

Cyrus Hall McCormick died on May 13, 1884. His son, Cyrus Jr., became  president of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s the company retained its position as the leading agricultural equipment manufacturer, however it found itself increasingly challenged by competitors in a somewhat depressed market. The company's chief rival was the Deering Harvester Company. By 1900 McCormick and Deering were nearly equal in sales.