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About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (July 30, 1914)
HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION" Interesting FARMING IMPLEMENT THAT GUIDES ITSELF. ONE of the latest innovations in fanning implements is a gasoline driven vehielo that guides itself around the field and needs no attention except to be started and stopped at the right points. This vehicle, which travels in a constantly narrowing circle, is so designed that any of the devices used in row-crop farming, such as plows, ridg ers, cultivators or sprayers, may be readily attached to it, but in order to use the implement it is necessary to abandon tho usual rectangular form of field with straight rows and adopt a circular field with circular rows spiral ing toward the center. Tho method is not adapted for big farms, but is intended for truck garden ing and for farming on a small scale where the expense of employing an operator for the machine would" be pro hibitive. At tho center of tho field ar. iron post is erected and strongly guyed. At tho top of tho post is u drum, and from this a slender steel wire runs through a guide pulley and to tho steer ing lever of the implement, which may be anywhere from twenty feet to sev eral hundred feet away. At each trip of tho vehielo around tho field the wire wind's once around the drum, and this guides tho implement tho width of one furrow closer to the ' center. This process is continued until tho implement comes as close to the center as the guy wires will permit. The drum is then released so that it will re volve freely and the implement is run out of tho field under hand steering, un winding the wire as it goes. Tho imple ment has already been used success fully in working a circular field con taining about seven acres. PROTECTS TRAIN FEOM REAU END COLLISIONS. Many suggestions havo been made re garding ways to guard against rear-end collisions on railroads, but tho most feasible seems to be a mechanical flag man, of which two models havo been per fected. They would replaco the rear brakeman, who, when the train stops on account of an accident or washout, is expected to go back a quarter of a mile to flag any approaching train. Brakomcn sometimes are slow about going back or neglect to go far enough and rear-end collisions occur. One of tho machines for replacing the unreli able brakeman is in tho form of a little car or track tricycle, to bo carried or hauled at tho rear end of tho train. If the train is stopped an employe drops tho tiicyelo to the track by a mechanical devico and it runs back 2,000 feet by electric power from storage batteries. As it runs it unreels a cable connecting it with tho train. Flags and lights are carried on tho little car to give warn ing. The other invention is a devico which unreels 2,000 feet of magnetized tor pedoes which adhero to tho track. An approaching train would explode them and bo warned. Tho strip rolls up automatically by machinery on the rear coach. NEW TOASTEE TURNS BREAD AUTOMATICALLY. An electric bread toaster recently placed on the market is equipped with a frame by which tho toast is turned automatically and without tho ueces- sity of touching it with tho fingers. A frame controlled by a knob is placed on cneh si do of the toaster. The frame is first turned outward to a horizontal position, and with tho bread laid on it is turned upward to tho position re quired for bringing tho bread close to Inventions the heated surface of the toaster. As soon as one side is toasted the frame is again turned outward, the lower edge of the bread slides on tho frame, and the untoastcd side of the bread is presented to the heated surface when the frame is returned to an upright position. The whole operation is per formed by a succession of right-hand and left-hand turns of the knob, which docs not become hot. USE FOE OLD BICYCLE. The illustration shows how an old bicycle may be used to furnish power for an emery stone. It may bo rigged up on the frame of an old grindstone, or something similiar. The largo sprocket and pedals are placed be tween two pieces of timber, the hub, on either side, fitting into largo holes bored in the crnsspieces. Tho counter shaft is placed below the top of the frame. The mandrel is raised about three inches, so the stone will not rub against the shaft. If there are no boxings bandy, good ones may bo made from maple or other close grained wood. ANIMALS CAN'T PASS. It is necessary to have an opening in an enclosure whero cattle, horses or other animals are kept, but it is annoy ing to havo to open a gate each time a person goes iu or out. The kind of gate shown in tho drawing is in use in many parks and is practical for the same pur poso elsewhere, as largo animals cannot get through, but a person can pass read ily. It may be constructed as shown or woveu wire may be used. REMEDYING THE SMOKE NUISANCE. The smoke nuisanco prevails wher ever soft coal is burned. Many de vivecs havo been devised to consume this smoke, not only to securo more heat but also to eliminate dirt and grime. One of tho- most successful dovices for stoves and furnaces in resi dences is tho hot air blast. The gases driven off from tho fuel cannot burn unless mixed with oxygen. The neces sary oxygen must be admitted in part from above; but opening the door (or its damper) interferes with the draft, and generally cools the gases below the burning temperature. This is remedied in good modern stoves and furnaces by admitting fresh air from above through a long metal tube, in which it is heated before mixing with the gases to be burned. a TELEPHONE MAKES COST KEEPING EASIER. The telephone is used successfully in a Chicago establishment as a means of keeping track of the time spent by employes on repair work and special jobs. Each department in which work outsido of the regular routine is done is connected by telephone with a cen tral switchboard, the operator at which has nothing else to do but record the timo of employes. A worker, taking up a particular piece oi woru, cans mis switchboard and gives the number of the job on which he is starting. The time is recorded on a job ticket by the operator, and when the work is finished the worker calls up again, announces that the job is dono and gives the num ber of tho next one to bo undertaken. In this way the exact cost to the es tablishment of each job is readily com puted. Health and A CLOSE companion of hygiene is sanitation. "Broadly defined," says George C. Whipple in tho At lantic, "sanitation covers all the arts which make for clean environment, and sanitary engineers coneern themselves with all of tho many activities required to provide communities with pure water, fresh air, clean food, and in general, clean surroundings. A few years ago, sanitatians were assiduously cultivating newly discovered germs; now, they arc also studying flics and mosquitoes and rats and squirrels and other insects and animals which may harbor and spread these germs. They are also studying the currents in lakes and tho laws of sedimentation and filtration. They have found that very few cases of sickness are ever caused by infection passing through the air. The aerial transmission of disease germs from patient to victim is not denied, but it has been found to be a very small fac tor, indeed almost a negligible factor, except in the case of a few diseases whero the virus is ultra-microscopic. Abandoning Fumigation. Acting on this theory, health officers, little by little, have been abandoning the practice of fumigating and disin fecting rooms which have been occupied by persons sick with contagious dis eases. In hospitals, segregation of dif ferent contagious diseases in separate rooms is no longer deemed absolutely necessary. Cases of scarlet fever, measles and typhoid fever have been kept in the same ward with an extreme ly small portion of cases of cross infection. Aerial transmission has been replaced by tho theory of contact. The germs do not float in the air from one person to another, but are carried on solid objects on spoons and knives and forks, on soiled clothing, on pencils and toys, books and tickets, doorknobs and drinking cups, and on scores of objects which pass from hand to hand or from hand to mouth. In the study of water the discovery has been mado of the natural processes of purification which occur in water during storage. Typhoid bacilli do not multiply in water, as once thought, bnt become gradually devitalized or, to use plain English, they die in a few days or a few weeks, according to the temperature and character of tho water. They are able to live longer in cold water than in warm water, hence there are more typhoid epidemics in winter than iu the summer and more in the North than in tho South. Microscopic Plants. It has been found that the algae, tha microscopic plants seen floating in tho waters of lakes, use up the carbonic acid dissolved in the water, and even take carbonic acid away from the dis solved bicarbonate of lime. This leaves the water in a condition in which the typhoid bacilli pro speedily killed. Whatever typhoid bacilli there may be in river water may bo practically elimi nated by filtration. For example, after tho water filtration plant was put in operation at Pittsburg the typhoid fever death rate fell from 135 per 100, 000 to 10; at Philadelphia it fell to 17.5; at Cincinnati, to 9 per 100,000. In the matter of ventilation old ideas aro being flung to the winds. There is not so much fear now of carbonic acid, for it has been found that the human body possesses powers of automatic readjustment to slight changes in the oxygen and carbonic acid content in the atmosphere of a room. Keep Air Moving. Much of the discomfort in crowded rooms and cars is found to be eliminated by the artificial movement of the air. Cooling the skin affects metabolism, and thus in an indirect way stimulates the lungs to seerete more oxygen. Instan ces of the effect of movement of the air may be seen during church services. During the sermon many people will feel drowsy. Let tho audience rise while a hymn is being sung and the effect upon the atmosphere is such that the sleepy feeling is entirely eliminated. Thero has been no new air brought into the room, but tho movement of the air as tho result of tho audience rising has caused the change. This is a point that clergymen might bear in mind when they find their audiences going to sleep. Cut the sermon in two, give out a hymn and with an awakened audience the gospel truths can be driven home with more telling effect. And the audience (will rise up and call him blessed. Sanitation "The New Health" UNDER the title of "The New Health" F. C. Walsh, M. D., says in the Forum that too much atten tion has been given to diseased human ity while the healthy have been allowed to shift for themselves. There is too much truth in this. Because a person is apparently well he is neglected, al lowed to shift for himself, no thought being given to any of the elements of weakness that his system may have held from his childhood days when he had tho scarlet fever, the measles, whooping cough, etc. Bright 's disease, heart trouble, or a chronic bronchial ailment may be a manifestation of damage that may have been suffered from these diseases of early life. Hence the need for the healthy to take an interest in being more healthy, to increase the stored-up energy that gives them tho present condition of health. "Medieal seienee," Dr. Walsh says, "is seeking a special serum to kill or offset each separate and distinct infec tious disease. The hope of the future is to vaccinate against everything." This ho calls a superb idea. Neverthe less, he recognizes in chemotherapy an other hope, and sees in it something bet ter than serums. "The idea, though not definitely crystalizcd until lately," he says, "in reality dates from the use of quinine in malaria, which is a typi cal instance of treatment by chemo therapy in a parasitic disease. Elirlich, the hero of the last International Medi cal Congress convened a Bhort tiime ago in London, has become the leader in this field through reducing the idea to a principle of treatment and the wide application of his own discovery in deal ing with the scarlet plague. . . The uso of quinine or some similarly acting compound in the treatment of hydrophobia will be the next extension of this idea, for through the discovery of Noguchi, the Japanese, the parasite which causes the disease has at last been isolated. In the tropics especially the parasitic and fatal diseases common to equatorial regions will probably be stamped out by this latest agency ol chemotherapy." Whilo this is one step in advance of the use of serums injeeted into the blood, Dr. Walsh recognizes that the end has not been reached. "In the past," he says, "wo havo dealt with the abnormal mind and diseased body too exclusively. Hygiene has been little more than a negation, a hint of what not to do. That young science is just beginning to real ize that it has a future. " Dr. Gorgas and his aids at Panama proved that hygiene is much more than a theory or a young science. By clean ing up the malarial districts and com pelling the men to live under hygicnie conditions, the region which had become known as practically a death trap was mado one of the healthieist in the world. Undoubtedly somo quinine was used to prevent the malaria in the beginning, but when the hygienic conditions were established all kinds of medicines be came practically unnecessary. The Americans' clean-up of Havana tells a similar story of the efficacy of hygiene. If the science is a "young one" it is. young only to those who have put more faith in medicine than in correct living. Dr. Walsh gives evidences that the medical profession aro lcarninig from the sanitary . engineers things more valuable than have been included in their college curriculum. . . Rober Machinery Co. Oregon Distributors K-W Master Vibrators and Eoad ' Smoothers; Hyde Propellers and Everything for the Motor Boat 280 E. Morrison St., Portland, Oregon, HELP FURNISHED FREE We furnish Farm Help, Dairymen. 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