Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/473

 458 FSDSBAL BBfOfiiEIi. �axle of the carriage and operated by a meclianism something like a reach, as it waa cailed, or the bar, H, and the lever, I. In 1S53 he adopted a separate rake-head, which, of course, he or some one mounted on or attached to the carriage. This separate rake-head, in order to be operative or of any use to the mechanism, must be in some way attached to the carriage. Some mode of unloading was also necessary to the operation of this machine. As all these rakes were intended to allow the driver to ride, some kind of treadle or lever, operated by the feet as well as the hands, was almost a neces- sity, and was indispensable to the praotical operation of this rake by one man. The whole organism shows that it was intended that the driver should ride upon the carriage, and that be should operate the rake from his position on the driver's seat. There must, therefore, be embodied in the mechanism, in some form, levers and treadles which would enable the driver to operate the rake, to hoid the teeth down while gathering the hay, and raise the rake-head when loaded. �I therefore corne to the conclusion that treadles and levers were early adopted in the progress of the developement of this rake, and that, substantially, the treadles which are shown, in the Whitconib patent were in use for much morc than two years prior to the appli- cation for this patent. �The testimony on the part of the defendants shows clearly, as evi- denced bythe recolleetion of witnesses, that such treadles were used; but from the very nature of the invention, and ifcs progress, step by step, it seems to me that one of the most natural devices that the mind of the constructor would be direeted to iu making a practical riding hay rake, would be the method of operating the rake from the driver's seat, and they could hardly hav^ attempted to make a device for fhat purpose without the adoption of treadles. This view seems also to be so fully in harmony with the recolleetion of the witnesses whohave testified as to the development of the lioally perfected rake, that I consider it confirmatory of the testimony of those witnesses. �Wliitcomb first began to make rakes at Glenville, Connectieut. He moved to Brundage's Corners, which were only a couple of- miles from Glenville, in 1853, and there had his factory until the fall of 1855, when he moved to Port Chester; these places being all within a very few miles of eaoh other.; This looa;lity seems to have been one in which the manufactu-re of this class cf. b«rse rakes had its first inception. A number of persons besides Whitcomb were engaged in the same line of manufacture. It is true that they may have followed Whitcomb. He may havebeen the iuventor of the rake-head, E, as ��� �