A "heading reaper" being pushed over a wheat crop by six mules. It cuts off the ears only, leaving the straw standing. The largest machines of this type used in California take swathes 50 feet broad.]
The first McCormick reaper did wonders on a Virginian farm; other inventors were stimulated; and in 1833 there appeared the Hussey reaper, built on somewhat similar lines. For twelve years or so these two machines competed against one another all over the United States; and then McCormick added a raker attachment, which, when sufficient grain had accumulated on the platform, enabled a second man on the machine to sweep it off to be tied up into a sheaf. At the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851, the judges awarded a special medal to the inventor, reporting that the whole expense of the Exhibition would have been well recouped if only the reaper were introduced into England. From France McCormick received the decoration of the Legion of Honour "for having done more for the cause of agriculture than any man then living."
It would be reasonable to expect that, after this public recognition, the mechanical reaper would have been immediately valued at its true worth. "Yet no man had more difficulty in introducing his machines than that pioneer inventor of agricultural implements. Farmers everywhere were slow to accept it, and manufacturers were unwilling to undertake its manufacture. Even after the value of the machine had been demonstrated, everyone seemed to fear that it would break down on rocky and uneven fields; and the inventor had to demonstrate in person to the farmers the practicability of the reapers, and then even guarantee them before the money could be obtained. Through all these trying discouragements the persistent inventor passed before he saw any reward for the work that he had spent half a lifetime in perfecting. The ultimate triumph of the inventor may be sufficient reward for his labours and discouragements, but those who would begrudge him the wealth that he subsequently made from his invention should consider some of the difficulties and obstacles he had to overcome in the beginning."[24]
In 1858 an attachment was fitted to replace the second passenger on the machine. Four men followed behind to tie up the grain as it was shot off the machine.