At the trial referred to at Hutchinson's, and the late Senator Roane's in 1843, it was demonstrated that a raker could ride and rake, and as was also done by Hussey many years before, at various places, and delivering the grain at back or side. But we have still better evidence than the above--C. H. McCormick himself. His Patent of 1847, covering some four or five folio pages, is altogether to change "the construction of the machine," to admit of, and to patent the raker's seat; the substance of the whole is comprised within the following brief extract from the patent of 1847: [Sidenote: McCormick's Patent for Raker's Seat] "And the gearing which communicates motion to the crank is placed back of the driving wheel, which is therefore subject to be clogged by sand, dirt, straw, etc.--_and in consequence of the relative position of the various parts, the attendant is obliged to walk on the ground by the side of the machine, to rake the cut grain from the platform as it is delivered and laid there by the reel_. These defects which have so much retarded the introduction 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.