roduction into practical and general use of Reaping
Machines, I have remedied by my improvements, the nature of which
consists in placing the driving wheels further back than heretofore, and
back of the gearing which communicates motion to the sickle, which is
placed in a line back of the axis of the driving wheel, the connexion
being formed, etc., and also bringing the driving wheel sufficiently far
back _to balance the frame of the machine with the raker on it_, to
make room for him to sit or stand on the frame," etc., etc.--"_which
cannot be done, if the raker walks by the side of the machine, as
heretofore_."

[Sidenote: Hussey Fourteen Years Ahead]

Now if C. H. McCormick's testimony in his own favor, can be considered
reliable, he certainly had not _invented_ a seat for his raker as late as
1845--and not long prior to 1847, when he patented it; and just _fourteen
years_ after Hussey had used it _every year_, successively. The raker's
seat therefore was just as _original_ an invention as the reel.

The "straight sickle blade," but cut one way only, and abandoned some 10
or 12 years after its conception in 1831, as he states, appears to be
the only original idea--properly belonging to whom it may--in the patent
of 1834. As to the "foundation" of the machine, viz:--the platform, cog
wheels, crank, etc., etc., they have been used by every projector in
reaping machines, for a century.

A machine exhibited at the World's Fair in London, by C. H. McCormick,
had the "straight sickle blade," but alternating the cuts every few
inches. With such a machine it is impracticable to cut grain, much less
grass, efficiently, divested of the reel. That plan has since been
changed to a much more efficient blade, the scolloped edged sickle. That
it was used in the Northwestern States by others several years previous
to its adoption by C. H. McCormick, we believe admits of just as little
doubt, as rests with the priority of invention of the Reel, Rakers-seat,
etc.

There is one other important feature, patented in 1845 and referred to in
the Pusey letter;--an "Iron case to preserve the sickles from clogging;"
these we will also take a look into after a while.

Obed Hussey, as appears by the evidence before us, made his first machine
in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he then resided, in the spring of 1833, and it
was patented the same year.

[Sidenote: The Hussey Principle]

His principle--the arrangement and construction of the Guard