PRUNING MADE EASY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVI, Issue 226, 27 September 1902, Page 6 (Supplement)

PRUNING MADE EASY.

'Comliinn.il on TrlramJiJS"

A Pnrlas

liiililenicrit For tlie F.ii'tncr,

A new form of priming implement has recently been invented, says The Scientific .American, which is well adapted to tbe trimming and pruning of tree branches and which ia provided with a chisel to para or smooth broken or. jagged wood.

Fig. 1 is a perspective vifcw of the complete implement. Fig. 8 is a perspective view of the catter. Fig. 8 shows a portion of the reach rod.

The combined pruning hook and chisel comprises a critter iron having a chisel edge on its front portion and a pruning knife edge which ia formed in the side and which coacts with a shoulder to cut the branch. This cntter iron slides in the flattened sleeve of a socket on the handle of the implement. The inner end of the cutter iron ia formed with an aperture the shape of which conforms to the shape of the outer end of the reach rod; so that the reach rod and

HEW PRUNING IMPLEMENT,

cutter iron can be detachably connected. The reach rod is flattened at one end to slide in tbe flattened part of tbe socket of the handle and is provided with a nut at tbe handle end. To deliver blows upon the stock or handle or upon the nut on the reach rod, a bammer weight of convenient form for a band hoi used.

..'; In opernnon the pruning knife edge is hooked over the branch to be cut off, ;#ith the branch resting against the Bnoulder opposite the knife edge. By means of the hammer weight repeated blows are struck upon the nut on the end of the reach rod, and these blows are communicated through the rod to the cutter. For the purpose of smoothing or cutting away wood the chisel edge on the front portion of the cutter iron is used, the blows in this instance being delivered upon the handle.

Gargling the Throat.

As the utility of gargling in diseases of the throat has been questioned by several physicians. of prominence in Europe, a series of experiments were recently made Dr. Sanger and are described in a Munich medical journal. The therapeutic utility of gargling depends on whether the fluid employed reaches the mucous membrane of the

pharynx and the tonsils or not. To determine this fact the tonsils of a patient were painted with methylene bine, and he then waa told to gargle with plain water. The water ejected from the mouth was found to b8 quite colorless, and the tonsils still retained their blue appearance. In other experiments the velum, a portion of the tongue and the tonsils were dusted with wheat flour and a gargle given the patient in which iodine was mixed with glycerin. It was found that the velnin and the tongue showed the bine color of the reaction on the starch, but the flour on the tonsils was neither colored nor washed away. Dr. Sanger believes that gargling is useless, and ■when a local treatment is desired a ewab of cotton wool should be employed. —Exchange.

Electric Light Problem.

Persons who have never studied the problems of electrical distribution, even engineers of high achievements in othei branches of the profession, hardly realize bow extremely onerous are the conditions tinder which the central lighting station engineer has to do his work. In almost every other branch of engineering where power hai? to be developed the load is a practically constant factor, whereas the central light station engineer has to provide the plant for supplying a very large output for a very few hours of the 24, while the plant which is to provide this output is, for the remaining hours of the day, practically idle and quite uhremunerative. Therefore a comparatively small proportion of the plant has to earn a dividend on an amount of capital enormously in excess of that expended on what I may call the earning plant. Having regard to the fact that, despite this great difficulty, central stations which are earning dividends are very numerous, the prospects of the industry when a practically constant load can be obtained are enormous.—Engineering Magazine.

Savins a City's Waste Paper.

Waste paper in the streets of Chicago is now being collected and removed by contract on a new system, tried for the first time. The Glean Street company has placed boxes at various points, in which the paper is thrown. The company has a contract with the city for a term of ten years, paying the city a percentage on its gross receipts. It has also a contract with the Salvation Army for collecting the paper and keeping the boxes clean inside and outside, the Army having its own arrangements for eorting the paper before disposing of it. About eight tons of paper are collected each week, and the quantity ia said to be increasing. The boxes are about the size of the street mail boxes for the receipt of newspapers and parcels and co3t about $4.50 per box erected. There are now 1,010 boxes in use, and they are mainly placed on street, corners at the edge of the sidewalk. One horse wagons of light construction are used for col lecting.—Engineering News.