112 TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— 'PART III. 



butter was made with this little churn on the grounds in 30 to 55 seconds, 

 and the surprising thing about it was that the butter made came in good 

 granular form. The bowl is made of ordinary white porcelain enameled 

 ware and when filled to its capacity for churning, one can make two 

 pounds of butter to the churning. The advantage of such a churn for 

 average farm conditions is evident. One need not hold the cream for 

 long periods of time, but can churn every day if desired and never miss 

 the time. The churn was invented in Australia and will soon be in the 

 hands of retailers all over the middle west. 



Ford and Fordson attachments are becoming so numerous that we 

 would hesitate to guess at the number now on the market. One new 

 and rather startling invention was exhibited as an attachment for a 

 Fordson on the fair grounds that deserves mention. It is a contrivance 

 with which gas is produced by the decomposition of water. Water is 

 composed of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen. As the hydrogen is liber- 

 ated it is used as fuel, supplying the motive power for the machine. 

 Should this invention prove a success it will undoubtedly be attached 

 to all kinds of tractors and trucks, for it is said to greatly reduce the 

 fuel cost. It is already in use, experimentally, for heating apartment 

 houses and it is said to reduce the cost of heating some 30 to 45 per cent. 



Those who find difficulty in filling their silos on account of scarcity of 

 labor took pleasure in investigating the Ronning silage cutter that was 

 exhibited. This machine cuts the standing corn in the field into silage 

 lengths and elevates the cut corn into a wagon box. It is then hauled 

 to the silo and blown into it in the usual way. With this machine five 

 men can fill a silo without lifting as much as a single cornstalk. A 

 thousand of these machines are already in use in this country, half of 

 them in Iowa. It is said to give excellent satisfaction and the manu- 

 facturers claim that as soon as the machine becomes generally known 

 no silos will ever be left unfilled in the fall. 



Another interesting thing among the machinery exhibits was a wind- 

 mill with an attachment for making electricity. This attachment has 

 been made for four years and is said to be very economical for furnish- 

 ing electricity for lighting the farm home. When the windmill is not 

 needed for pumping water it stores up electricity in a large storage bat- 

 tery and thus supplies both water and light without any fuel cost. 



BEEF CATTLE 



The Iowa State Fair has established a reputation throughout the entire 

 country for putting on superior beef cattle shows. This year's show will 

 only help to strengthen this reputation, for it was truly a wonderful 

 exhibition of bovine excellence. More cattle were in the stalls and the 

 quality showed an improvement over last year. The number of the dif- 



