Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/886

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���With their hands and elbows on the piano the deaf mutes "hear" the music through vibrations

How Deaf Mutes Feel Music Through Their Lungs, Feet, and Heads

DEAF mutes love music. It thrills them. The accompanying illustration shows four deaf mutes receiving musical vibrations by placing their hands and elbows on the piano while the teacher plays it. The vibrations not only give sensations which enliven the body but they actually stimulate them. The parts most sensitive to vibrations are the chest, head, lungs and feet. "An exciting feeling comes up through the floor," is the way one deaf boy describes it. "Without music I would be lonesome," wrote a little Italian deaf- mute. "It gives me a strong shock through the feet to the head," stated another. Others, when asked to explain their sensa- tions, said: "I feel it in my temples and in my legs," "I feel it through my whole body," and "Ifeel it in my chest and lungs According to teachers of deaf- mutes, musical instruction is more important as an educa- tional factor for the deaf child than it is for the hearing. Of course it is doubtful if the totally deaf child can learn to distinguish pitch or tone, and discord from harmony, in the accepted sense. But there is no question that they feel music and that it stirs their emotions. In the New York Insti- tution for the Deaf, eye rhythm, ear rhythm, body rhythm and motion rhythm are all utilized.

��Planting Strawberries with a New Time-Saving Machine

STRAWBERRY growers will find that a machine which sets out the plants better than it can be done by hand is a means of saving a great deal of back-breaking work. As three men and a team of horses are able to set out three acres a day with the machine, it also means that the plants may be put into the ground when weather and soil condi- tions are the most favorable.

One of the men drives the team, while the other two place the plants in the ground in a furrow opened up by a shoe of the kind used on corn- planters. An automatic trip con- nected with the wheels opens a valve, so that water escapes from a barrel and drenches the roots of the plants; two in- clined wheels then press the soil firmly about the roots and even cover the wet soil with a layer of dry dirt which prevents caking. Spaces between plants may be regulated to suit the grower. The fre- quency with which the water is allowed to escape can be finely adjusted by means of a lever.

After the plants are set out, it is neces- sary for a man to go over the work, here and there removing excess dirt or plac- ing the roots deeper in the ground. The machine works best in a good seed bed, but has been used with success in sod ground. One grower of long experience succeeded in getting an average of ninety- six per cent of his plants to grow — a larger percentage by far than he was ever able to get when the work was done by hand. At best strawberry raising is a precarious undertaking. A planting machine such as ~ the one shown ^ here should fill a long felt want.

���The two men below place the plants in a furrow opened by a shoe. Water is automatically fed

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