Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/912

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��Popular Science Monthly

���This apparatus will inform the farmer how much lime, if any, his fields require to make them productive

��Every Farmer May Be His Soil Chemist

��Own

��EVERY available acre must be made to yield to its full capacity if the United States and our allies are to win the war. Many soils fall short of their full productive capacity because they are sour or acid. This condition can be remedied by applying a sufficient amount of lime.

To overcome the / T

difficulty of determin- ing exactly the amount of lime nec- essary to neutralize the acidity of the soil a simple apparatus has been designed and placed on the market. A test re- quires but a few min- utes. Representative samples of earth from various section^ of the field are mixed to make the average soil of a field. The earth is dried, sifted and weighed in the scales which form a part of the tester, then placed in a glass bottle. A carefully measured amount of muriatic acid is

��poured into a smaller bottle. A definite amount of water goes into the third glass container, above which rises a marked gage. The three bottles are tightly corked and connected in series by rubber tubes.

The action of the acid upon the lime provided by nature in the soil creates a gas which passes into the tester and forces some of the water to rise in the gage. If no re- action results, it shows that no lime is present in the soil. If the water rises to the mark for three tons per acre or above it, the soil contains all the lime it needs. It should contain at least three tons in each acre and if the gage shows only two tons it means that the field requires an additional ton of lime for each acre.

The simplicity of the device makes it possible for the intelligent farm.er to con- duct his ov/n experiments and apply the remedy called for, thus making it possible to keep the soil always at its highest de- gree of productiveness.

��A Camouflaged Well-Curb

���Fon; hij

��An imitation, in concrete, of an old Vermont well with "oaken" bucket

��^OND memories of is childhood days on the old farm in Vermont induced R. E. Sperry, a resi- dent of Inglewood, California, to place a replica of his fa- ther's well-curb in the garden of his Cali- fornia home. The curb, roof supports, roof, and even the "old oaken bucket," are made of concrete. The well is a well in name only, ob- taining its water sup- ply from the city mains, but it serves the sentimental and picturesque purpose desired.

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