FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 315 



far from it. These patents were given for small and often insignificant 

 improvements, and in some cases might all be attached to a single machine, 

 although it is extremely doubtful if more than one would prove of any value. 

 The preceding sufficiently indicates the principles of our patent law, from 

 which it is seen to be capable of guarding all rights of inventors, and one might 

 even think it would afford them pay proportioned in amount to the value of 

 their invention. It would even seem to afford the people protection from 

 imposition, for it gives them the right to test the validity of any patent in the 

 courts. If they believe a patent to be an undeserved privilege, they have only 

 to prove it and tlie patent will be revoked. The question which is now before 

 us is whethei', in its practical workings, the system is as beneficial as the care- 

 fully drawn out laws would indicate. That our patent system is popular' with 

 inventors is well known to everybody ; in fact, the patented article is omni- 

 present — it is everywhere. It is in our boots, it is in our clothes, it is in the 

 tools we work with, in the buggy we ride in, in the harness on the horse, in the 

 whip we strike him with. It is to be found in our fences, in our gates, in our 

 pumps, in our kitchen, in our food, and finally in our coffin. We may sup- 

 pose that we plow our land with a plow that pays the inventor ten per cent; 

 we drag it with a harrow that pays him twenty per cent ; we sow our grain 

 with a drill that pays him fifty per cent; we reap our grain with a machine 

 that pays him 300 per cent; we pitch it with a fork that pays him ten per 

 cent, on to a wagon that has paid fifteen per cent; and finally have it threshed 

 with a machine that has paid fifty per cent; and the straw delivered and pre- 

 served in a patented manner for which we pay fifty per cent more. Such is, 

 in effect; our patent system. It has woven around us a system of taxation 

 more complete than was ever devised by any minister of finance. We are taxed 

 by the use of patented inventions, from the time we enter this world until we 

 leave it; even then our body is consigned to the dust in a coffin or casket 

 which, ninety-nine out of one hundred times, is not free from some patented 

 device. 



INVENTOES NOT ALWAYS PROTECTED. 



Although our patent system is so popular with inventors, 3'et it is a fact that 

 it does not always afford them protection; indeed, when the invention is of 

 any great importance, the history of the past shows that frequently the true 

 inventor receives little or no pecuniary benefit. This was true in the case of 

 Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat; Goodyear, the inventor of the process 

 of hardening rubber; Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin: Ericsson, the 

 inventor of the screw propeller and the famous monitor; and many others. 

 Their machines, though of vast importance, generally were complex, and the 

 patents were easily avoided. Our patent law is, however, more successful in 

 affording protection to inventors of small and specific things, such, for in- 

 stance, as the drive-well, the lock-stitcli, the corset, and a thousand and one 

 insignificant things. These inventions frequently form the basis of a large, 

 fortune. This much is usually true: that the money received from a patent 

 depends not so much on the value of theins'ention as on the business talents of 

 the inventor. The 



COST OF PATENTED ARTICLES 



is usually largely in excess of the cost of manufacturing. This seems to be 

 always true in such cases as the lock-stitch of the sewing machine, where one 

 patent controls all known methods; but usually, as the old saying is, "There 



