Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/711

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��Planting Tobacco with a One-Man Planting Machine

THE old way of setting-out tobacco, tomato, cabbage, and similar plants, was to wait for a showery day, when the ground was damp, take up the plants, and feverishly and laboriously go over the ground with a "peg" and replant them before the ground got dry again. Now, however, there is a machine on the market that does away with all the waiting, all the feverish haste, and all the attendant backache. In addition the plants are better planted, and very few are lost through withering, while the output is several times that of the old method.

In operation the ground is laid out, and barrels of water placed at convenient places in the field, together with boxes of plants. The large cylinder of the ma- chine is filled with water, and the operator takes the machine and a basket of plants (which can be slung around his neck for convenience) into the field. He stabs the point into the ground, drops a plant down the smaller tube and releases the trap. This inserts the plant into the soil and at the same time waters it and presses it down firmly.

As the machine irrigates the plants as it goes along, it is unnecessary to watch the weather as formerly, and plants that are set out in dry weather do as well as those that are set out in the damper weather.

The machine does away with all the body-racking, backaching stoop- ing over that used to make setting- out the bete noire of all market-garden- ers. Consequently more pains are taken by the men, as it is no longer a hated job to be got rid of as quickly as possible. In other words, it is a device of this kind that makes market gardening a pleasure.

����The machine, slung around the neck, sets and waters the plants simultaneously

��Roller-carrying frame which enables a boat to be launched from a listed ship

Rolling Down a Ship's Side to Safety in a Lifeboat

A SHIP which is torpedoed rarely sinks on an even keel. Whether it lists to starboard or port depends on the location of the injury. The crew and passengers rush to the high side, clamber into the lifeboats, and drop to safety if they can. We say "If they can" because frequently the boats strike not the water, but the iron plating of the ship's side.

To prevent just such accidents, a new method of launching life- boats has been in- vented. A cradle frame is attached to the outside of the lifeboat near- est the ship. If the ship lists, the life- boat rides down the ship safely on little rollers with which the cradle frame is provided. The frame and its rollers also serve to keep the boat at a safe distance from the sinking ship.

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