90 



Prof. Priestly, working with overhead (Hscharges, have also ob- 

 tained encouraging' results. It is stated that the cost of the 

 Lodge- Newman apparatus — which, by the way, has been adopted 

 by the departments of agriculture of the United States and Egypt 

 — works out at $1000 for 25 to 30 acres, and for the treatment of 

 double that area onlv a small increase in cost is entailed. 



Rascality in handling old rice is exposed. by the Queensland 

 Ai^rieultiiral Journal, which mentions the fact that powdered talc 

 is used in the renovation of damaged rice. ( )ld. discolored, worm- 

 eaten rice is said to be so treated that it takes on the a])pearance 

 of new grain, which is said to be very injurious to native laborers 

 in trojMcal coun.tries where rice is the staple food. 



Hawaii is probably nearly ripe for the introduction of an agri- 

 cultural bank or banks. Homesteaders and small ranchers ought 

 to be placed in position where they could obtain long term loans 

 at moderate interest rates on the security of their land. J. K. 

 Cahill, who investigated the German system of rural credits for 

 the British board of agriculture, in the prefatory note to his 

 report says that in no modern state does organized effort for .safe- 

 guarding and promoting the economic interests of agriculture aj)- 

 ])ear to have been so persistent and successful as in Germany, 

 more especially in the direction of providing the farmer with 

 facilities for obtaining credit, for acquiring the instruments of 

 ])ro(luction, and for disposing of his produce on the most favor- 

 able terms. In Germany landowners can obtain mortgage loans 

 through a variety of special institutions for mortgage credit. At 

 present the total outstanding loans obtained through such agencies 

 may be estimated at approximately two billion dollars. The goal 

 of a cooperative bank Icxin in practically ever\' ])arish of the 

 whf)le monarchy has now been nearly reached. There are in 

 Germany 17,000 agricultural cooi)erative banks, with a total mem- 

 bershi]) of over 1,"5C0,000. In 1910 the total turn-..vcr of 14,729 

 such banks amounted to al)out $1,273,000,000. In the sixteen 

 years, 1893 to 1010, onl\- nineteen rural credit societies were 

 involved in bankruptcy. 



]\Ir. Thorne Paker's account <>f electrified chickens ( in a paper 

 ]>resented to the Koyal Society of Arts) reads more like a chapter 

 in romance than in technology, says the Canleiiers' Cliroiiiclr. 

 The mortality of birds hatched in electrified incubators is said 

 to be extremely small, and tlie chickens art- rtady for market in 

 five weeks instead of three months. Tiiey thrive on less food, 

 lose their sbvncss, sparks ll\' from lluir beaks when they peck at 

 a finger lield out to them — the owner of the finger feeP a distinct 

 slK)ck, but the birds seem unaware that tluy -.wv ullur than just 

 ordinarv chickens. 



