A tom cat and a tabby cat were courting on a back fence at night.
The tom leaned over to the tabby with pent up passion and purred... "I'll die for you"
The tabby gazed at him from under lowered eye lids and asked,
"How many times?".
Black-American patentIn 1834, Henry Blair of Glenross, Maryland, received a U.S. patent on a corn planter (No. X8447). Two years later, on 31 Aug 1836, he was also issued a patent on a cotton seed planter (No. 15). Blair was born in Maryland about 1807 and lived until 1860. He was a successful farmer whose inventions met a need to increase efficiency in farming. His patents were signed with a simple "X" because he had not learned to read or write. Henry Blair was the second African-American to hold a patent. For some time he had been regarded as the first, until it became better known that the first African-American on record to be granted a patent was Thomas Jennings for a "dry-scouring" cleaning process (3 Mar 1821, No. X3306).«[Image top: side view of machine; bottom: detail of section of seed hopper showing cylinder with holes in the periphery that turns with the wheels to drop grains of corn.] |
