Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/592

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��Popular Science Monthly

���The gasoline en- gine runs the blower machine which supplies air for the fire

��Boring a hole in the roots of a stump. Afire is afterward start- ed in each hole

��Blowing Stumps Away with Air — An Agricultural Shortcut

THE gasoline engine will play an im- portant part in clearing two hundred million acres of cut-over land in some thirty states of the Union. Gasoline engines have for a dec- ade or more -been successfully used as power for stump-pullers, but the new method recently evolved promises greater efficiency.

The engine is used to run what is known as the "blower machine." This usually consists of a gaso- line-engine, a blower, a dis- tributor, and several lengths of rubber hose with short lengths of iron pipe upon one end. The air in the blower is divided into an equal number of parts by the distributor and is forced through the sections of hose to the nozzle, from which it is directed upon the fire.

��A one and one-quarter inch auger is used to bore a hole into the roots of the stump at a sufficient depth below the surface to permit of eventually tilling the soil, the earth having first been removed around the stump to a depth of from twelve to eighteen inches. A fire is started at the bottom of these holes by means of a hot iron, the nozzles being placed at the openings. The air blasts keep the fire going. While these are burning, four holes are bored two to three feet away at right angles to the first ones. Fires are started in these. After the its of holes burn to intersection they continue burning stump is consumed, so that the air blasts can be removed. One man is able to operate five to six lines of hose. As these outfits cost but three hundred to five hundred dollars equipped, and the cost of gasoline is but ten cents per hour, this proves a very economical method of clearing wild land of stumps.

���The owl paper weight which holds scissors and paste

��An Owl with Eyes of Scis- sors and Backbone of Paste

WISE old Mr. Owl may sleep during the day and fly by night in his natural ele- ment, but when the manu- facturers get him in their clutches they reverse the order of things. The ac- companying illustration shows what they did to a wooden owl. His back is a tube of paste; those are scissors around his eyes. He is six inches high and the scissors that shade his eyes slip into an opening in the front. As a household pet he keeps company with the housewife's workbasket, the sewing machine and the baby's scrap-book.

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