| The Hockney Company was founded in the summer of 1903, during the height of the ice harvesting era on the lakes around Silver lake, Wisconsin. C.L. Hockney, the village Blacksmith, was commissioned to devise a method for clearing aquatic weeds in the areas where blocks of ice would be cut the following winter. |
| Hockney set to work and came up with a rowboat-mounted sickle device that could cut a clean swath through the tangled weedgrowth. The original Hockney Underwater Weedcutter was the first of its kind and so effective that soon other ice companies were beating a path to his door. |
| Over the ensuing years, C.L. Hockney continued to perfect his machine. The rowboat was replaced by a self-contained, self-powered craft that not only "mowed" the weeds, but was very easily adapted to rake them to shore as well. |
| Mounted on a single pontoon and propelled by an innovative paddle system, Hockney's weedcutter did not become entangled in the dense weedgrowth and could be operated in water as shallow as 10 inches. |
| Today, the Hockney Underwater Weedcutter is used around the world to keep waterways clear of excessive or unsightly weedgrowth. It is simplicity in motion, an environmentally safe and efficient method for controlling aquatic weeds without chemicals and without fouling the waters it's designed to enhance. |
