Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/838

 PATTEE V. MOLINE PLOW CO. 823 �machine, and they have also obtained an assignment of the Poling patent, which is a few months later in date than the Pattee patent. What may be called the Pattee cultivator has two characteristic features — �(1) It operates without a longue or pole, the draft animais being attached in such a way as that each animal, within certain limits, draws his own plow, the draft being distributed to each animal by means of the joints in the axle; (2) it has a jointed axle or coupling yoke, by which the two plows are held together and made to operate at a certain distance apart. �It seems, for the purposes of this case, to be conceded that, in order to make this class of cultivators practical, there must be some provision for the flexion of the axle, so that each horse shall move its own plow, or the plow to which it is directly attached, independently of the other, to a limited extent. That is.if the two plows are rigidly coupled or connected together, and one horse moves faster than the other, or deflects from the line of draft, the machine will have a side- ways motion, which will throw it upon or too close to the rows of plants it is intended to cultivate, or require extra effort on the part of the plowman to keep it in line. A joint of some kind, then, which shall operate to prevent the sideways action spoken of, and also divide the draft between the horses, is deemed a special desideratum in this class of cultivators, and one of their chief merits. The flexion is obtained in complainants' machine, under the Pattee patent, by means of two joints, one at each end of the axle, A, as it is termed in the specification. The joints are made by means of the side plates, A and B, and a spindle, as shown. From these side plates stand the horizontal arms which form the journals for the supporting wheels; the plow-beams being attached to the axle just outside the joints — that is, between the joint and inner end of the hub. These joints allow a free backward and forward motion, and the combined parts make the arched jointed axle described. �The principal defendant in this case, the Moline Plow Company, — the other defendants being ofi&cers of the corporation, and only charged with violating these patents by their action as such officers, — makes a tongueless, straddle-row cultivator, which has an arched or bent axle, with wheels revolving upon the journals at the ends of the axle, and plows attached to the axle by a joint allowing the plows to swing vertically and laterally, and the axle jointed in the middle of the arch by a torsion joint, which is prevented by lugs from turning only a certain distance; but the joint is placed in the mid- ��� �