1907. 
TIIE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
635 
A TALK ABOUT PATENTS. 
What They Are; How Obtained 
PART II. 
i lie fourth tiling that determines the value of a 
patent to its owner is, as a rule, the most serious. If 
a patent is granted at all, the chances arc about even 
that it is valid. The breadth can be quite accurately 
determined by a patent lawyer. The device may “ftil 
a long-felt want.” But the ability of the inventor to 
handle his patent as a business proposition is a serious 
matter. The vast majority of people appear to be inca¬ 
pable of handling anything successfully as a business 
proposition. It is little wonder then that the majority 
of inventors get little out of their patents. It takes 
a peculiar bent of mind to invent well, and it takes an 
entirely different bent of mind to build up 
and establish a successful business. Don’t 
deceive yourself into thinking your patent 
will go out and start a business and 
pull you after it. You will have to do 
the pulling. From my experience I am 
of the opinion that the difficulties encoun¬ 
tered in creating and holding a market 
for an article, patented or not, are greater 
and more serious than those encountered 
in inventing the article. I know a Mr. 
Gardner, who began life without a dollar 
and with no education. He is now close 
to fifty and owns three fine farms near 
Washington. I went down to the wharf 
one morning to see some fine cattle he 
was shipping, when a stranger came up 
to admire the stock and joined in the 
conversation. After a while the stranger 
said that he used to farm, but that,he did 
not like it and had quit it. “Why,” Mr. 
Gardner said, “I like it.” “Well,” said 
the stranger, “farming is all right if you 
have a good rich farm all paid for, with good buildings 
-and plenty of good stock.” “Yes,” Mr. Gardner re¬ 
plied, “but that ain’t nuthin’ if you don’t know how.” 
That last sentence is pretty badly kinked on its gram¬ 
mar, but I never heard more hard sense pounded down 
into as few words. Now, you may have the best pat¬ 
ent on earth, “but that ain’t nuthin’ if you don’t know 
how.” 
The fact that you might not be able to exploit your 
patent well should not make any difference with you. 
Take your chances on doing well with it; you have to 
take your chances on everything else that you do. If 
you do not make any money out of it, the world will 
be better off and you will, too, and your own respect 
for yourself will increase and your neighbors will hold 
you in higher esteem than if you never tried. If you 
have an invention you should write to the Commissioner 
of Patents, Washington, D. C., for a copy 
of the Rules of Practice in the United 
States Patent Office. A copy will be 
mailed you free. Enclose no postage. 
The fee will be $15 for the examination 
and $20 more if the patent should be 
granted. The office is supported entirely 
by the fees from inventors, so as not to 
impose any expense on the people. Then 
an attorney’s fee will not be less than $20, 
and you should by all means have one. 
Don’t hold back because you fear your 
invention is not of sufficient importance, 
or because you fear that it might be fool¬ 
ish. We arc used to foolish cases. We 
may laugh a little, but you won’t know 
t>hat, and then, again, we may take off our 
hats to you. Eighteen years of daily in¬ 
tercourse with the inventive acts of people 
from nearly every country on the globe 
have only made more profound my ad¬ 
miration of the subtle workings of the 
minds of American inventors. But on the 
other hand, the Patent Office seems to be 
a peculiar mark for the crank. Some are 
comical, some pathetic, some annoying 
and some dangerous. 
About 20 years ago an application for 
a patent for a flying machine was filed 
by an Englishman. As it had no balloon attachment 
to buoy it up it was obviously inoperative, and to 
end the matter the examiner required a working model. 
That generally settles such cases. A few weeks later 
a fine-looking, dignified gentleman, faultlessly attired 
in a Prince Albert coat and silk hat, stepped into the 
office and announced that he was the inventor of the 
flying machine, and had with him a working model 
that he was prepared to exhibit. The examiner pro¬ 
posed that they get on the roof on the south end of 
the Patent Office, and if his device would fly a certain 
distance a patent would be granted to him. He agreed, 
and together they climbed to the roof. When the in¬ 
ventor had his machine all ready he gave it a push 
to start it, and, as might have been expected, it dropped 
like lead to the sidewalk below. The manner of the 
man changed in an instant, and the examiner sud¬ 
denly realized that he was on the roof, beyond the pos¬ 
sibility of aid, and in the presence of a monomaniac 
who was thoroughly aroused by having been balked 
on the point on which he was insane. With rare pres¬ 
ence of mind the examiner expressed his regret and 
proposed that they go down and get it and try it again. 
The inventor consented, but when they were down lie 
said he would not trouble the examiner further that 
day, but that he would repair his device and they would 
try it again the next day. But that night at his hotel, 
overcome by chagrin at his failure, the poor fellow 
turned on the gas and later was found dead. 
The perpetual motion man is more or less in evi¬ 
dence most of the time in some form or other. He 
LILY SEEDLINGS, ONE AND TWO YEARS OLD. 
See Ruralisms, Page 638. 
Fig. 315 
seems unable to remember that it is impossible to 
do away with all friction, and that any friction, however 
small, will in time cause a stoppage of any machine, 
but we generally quiet him by requiring a working 
model. Pie never gets the model quite finished. 
The crank most in evidence and most annoying is 
the one who has no knowledge of mechanics, but whose 
head is filled with wholly impracticable and impossible 
schemes. They never try their inventions. They just 
“think them out in their heads and know that they 
will work.” They propose to pull stumps by apparatus 
that would fall to pieces if you tried to pull an onion 
with it; or devices to free horses from a wagon if they 
run away, but which frees them every time they start, 
whether they run away or walk away; or milking ma¬ 
chines that would strip a cow’s teats right off the first 
pull; or attachments for rocking chairs so that all 
ROAD END OF THE OLD HOPE FARM HOUSE. 
See Hope Farm Notes, Page 639. 
Fig. 316. 
the madame has to do is to rock the livelong day 
and the attachment will fan her, churn the butter, skim 
the milk, spank the children, drive the pigs out of the 
garden, darn the stockings, pick the cherries, gather 
the eggsi, and, if she hitches the phonograph on, will 
lull her to sleep with sweet strains of “Gentle Annie.” 
No amount of careful explanation of the defects and 
insufficiencies of the schemes appears to worry such 
cranks. 
Many patents are grantqd for peculiar things. In 
the early part of the last century, when tapeworms 
were not very well understood, a patent was granted 
for a trap to catch them. The trap was like a small 
round wire bird cage with a string tied to the top of 
it. A piece of cheese was put in the' cage for a bait, 
and the person having the tapeworm swallowed the 
cage. The worm was supposed to put his head through 
the wires of the cage to get the cheese, and the wires 
of the cage would catch behind his gills. When the 
person was sure the worm was fast he was to pull the 
cage out of his stomach by the string, and the 30-foot 
reptile would come with it. 
One fellow said that they had found it impossible to 
make the hired girl get up in the morning, either by 
alarm clock or by calling her, so he took out a patent 
for an arrangement that made the head end of the 
bed drop down on the floor when an alarm clock went 
off. He thought that would have a tendency to arouse 
her a little, and, as the office was not prepared to 
dispute him. he got his patent. Another fellow thought 
that it was too much trouble to be always tipping his 
hat to ladies, so he invented a device lo¬ 
cated inside the hat, and which made the 
hat raise up by itself whenever he bowed 
his head. We are always looking out for 
labor-saving devices, and were glad to 
grant this patent for saving so much val¬ 
uable time for the overburdened hat-tip¬ 
pers. Another has a device attached to 
a chicken’s legs that permits it to navigate 
in a forwardly direction, but if it stops by 
the wayside to scratch it gets a boost 
along the right direction. I am perhaps 
indiscreet in telling of this patent, for I 
am likely to receive many inquiries as to 
where these devices can be bought for 
your neighbor’s chickens. I don’t know 
where. 
In an old patent for a tombstone the 
inventor placed the following verses on 
the Patent Office drawings, and the patent 
was published with the verses just as the 
inventor had placed them on the draw¬ 
ings : 
Here lies Windell, 
An inventor by trade, 
This monument, you see, 
Is an invention he made 
A curious fact. 
It has sometimes been said, 
That he made it while living. 
But enjoys it while dead. 
I just want to suggest, in a spirit of great and un¬ 
bounded kindness, to the crank inventor the wonder¬ 
ful advantage to be had in enjoying his invention at 
the time poor Windell enjoyed his, and not, on our 
account, to delay longer than possible the time at 
which he enters into the enjoyment that awaits him. 
A. F. KINNAN. 
KEEPING UP RURAL CEMETERIES. 
I was glad to see you take up the neglected cemetery 
question, and as we in western New York have made 
much progress in that direction of late 
I will say that as soon as the ball is set 
rolling it is easy, for one community will 
follow another in good deeds about as 
readily as it will in evil ones. There is 
always a deed of all burying grounds as a 
whole in somebody’s name, who either 
sells off lots or allows them to be taken 
without formality. Get the leading lot 
owners or people interested in the cem¬ 
etery together, and form a society, which 
should be incorporated. There is a cem¬ 
etery law that regulates such cases, and 
provides a form under which the incor¬ 
poration is made. The next step is for 
the corporation to obtain the title to the 
cemetery in its own name, and then funds 
must be raised by subscription or regular 
membership, perhaps both. If only enough 
can be raised at first to get the cemetery 
mowed once a week during the growing 
season that is a good start. The new 
corporate owner of the cemetery should 
fence the lot well, if it is not already prop¬ 
erly fenced, and then sell lots to appli¬ 
cants for a fund to keep up expenses. 
No new lots should be sold without an 
arrangement for taking care of such 
lots. We have paid $25 for the care- 
taking of our family lot in a village cemetery, which 
insures the work for all time. There are always a few 
lots that cannot be made contributory, mainly because 
there are no living persons interested in them, and they 
must be looked after gratuitously. Few people will re¬ 
fuse to contribute where they have near relatives bur¬ 
ied, and especially if they expect to be buried there also. 
Soon there will be money enough to keep a man at work 
all the time on the grounds. If he is the sexton and 
has some gardening instincts or training, so much the 
better. He will take pride in his work. As funds in¬ 
crease embellishment of the proper sort follows; a gate¬ 
way and roads, and, if there is money and need, a vault 
or two can be added. It should be mad« sure that re¬ 
sponsible and energetic people are put at the head of 
the corporation. j. w. c. 
Buffalo, N. Y. 
