Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/431

 Even the Hornets Have Ideas Sometimes

��Popular Science Monthly New

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��EIGHT luiiulrfd miles up the Amazon RixtT, ill South America,

��I hornets liih is unique

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��nest was found recenll\ in the annals of wasp architecture. It is constructed of clay, put together not in tiers after the custom of wasps, but in a solid mass, the weight of which ma\- be judged from the accompanying photograph in which the nest is shown suspended on a stick and re- quiring both hands of the exhibitor.

The rounded wall is unusually thick and a question arises as to how the tiny builder came to the conclusion that the best way to keep his house cool in that torrid temperature was to put as much solid cement between its interior and the sun as he could get. He evidently figured, also, that his body would require less space if he slid into his home length- wise than if he flew straight in, in the usual way. He tried it out. an\wa\-, making his doorwa}' just a long, narrow slit through which his slender body could pass easily enough but which would be burglar-proof to almost an\- kind of marauder daring to attempt in\asion.

���The Sun Has Baked This Wasp's Nest Until It Is as Hard and Almost as Heavy as if It Were Made of Stone

��of the machine.

���Rolling, Harrowing and Seeding With One Machine

\ internal citiiibuslion engine takes the place of horses in driving the combined roller and harrow invented by an Indiana man. With the machine a field of growing grain can be rolled without uprooting it by the travel of horses' feet. One or more harrows can be combined with the rolling im- plement, or may be omitted from it. according to the work to be done. A seeding attach- ment is provided at the forsvard end Clo\erseed. for example, may be sowed broadcast by the seeding attachment, the seed rolled into the soil, and then harrowed to prexent the surface from becoming encrusted. Or the opera- tion of the machine may be varied for other seeds, soils, and conditions.

The direction of the tra\el of the im- plement may be reversed and the soil harrowed, rolled and the seed sown upon the rolled surface. The machine does the work of four horses and two men at a cost of one and one half cents an acre. Clover and grasses can be saved by roll- i n g t h e ni down with the m a c h i n e \\- h i 1 e the ground is still much too soft for horses to walk on.

��The Combined Roller and Harrow Which Does the Work of Four Horses and Two Men at a Cost of One and One Half Cents an Acre, to Say Nothing of the Time Saved

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