Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/753

 Popular Sricfirr Monlhli/

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��The Farm Tractor As an Aid in Road Building

IN Atkinson, New Hamp- shire, the farm tractor has been successfully used in making and repairing roads, doing away with horses.

A twenty-horsepower trac- tor, as shown in the picture, was used in conjunction with the regulation road-machine for rounding off the surface of the road and cleaning out gutters. It was found that the tractor not only easily does the work of six or eight horses, but better and in less time. Two men only are required as com- pared with the four required with the former system. Besides, double the ground is covered.

When the tractor is used with the road- drag, one man, dri\ing the tractor, can round up and- smooth as much State road in half a day as one man with a pair of horses in one day and a half. The tractor hauls four to six cartloads of gravel in the same time that a two-horse team re- quires for one load. Figured in dollars and cents, the trac- tor could easily do $24 worth of work at a cost of only $8, with an additional saving of from twenty-five to fifty per cent in time.

���Trapping the Wise Old Crow

SINCE time and ex- periment have proved that the aver- age crow is perfectly able to decide whether or not an object in a field can handle a gun, traps to lure the bird are now being tried out. One of the most successful of these traps assumes the formi of a nest fastened se-

��This twenty-horsepower farm tractor proved itself a val- uable and efficient aid in road repairing in Atkinson, N. H.

��curely to the branches of trees, or to any convenient support in the locality to be protected. The nest is made of strong wire mesh, padded in much the same way and with about the same materials as if made by a mother-bird. But the nest rests on a delicately balanced spring which is op- erated by a lever just under the eggs. When the crow gives his first investigating peck, the two sides of the supporting framework of the trap-nest come together like the leaves of a book, with bonecrushing force. Another trap which has proved successful looks like a workman's dinner pail. The cover is turned down, with just enough of an opening left to emit the tantalizing smell of cooked food. With hungry lack of caution, the crow at- tempts to sweep the cover ofif with his foot, the tw^o steel sides of the trap, which he had mistaken for han- dles at the side of the pail, come together and grab him by the leg, holding him with painful effectiveness to await the further venge- ance of the farmer.

���Above are shown various kinds of traps for catching the wily crow. The effectiveness of some depends on his appetite, others on his curiosity. Scarecrows are ineffective — he knows too much

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