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. . .
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