December, 1919 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



807 



There is one thing more. A tornado 

 might probably blow it down, altho I have 

 not heard of any such catastrophe as yet. 

 My new windmill that has just been ship- 

 ped cost $250. Of course there has to be 

 a generator, switchboard, and a set of bat- 

 teries. But these three items are just about 

 the same that are needed for the Deleo and 

 similar outfits. 



There are two more items that should be 

 mentioned in connection with the windmill 

 — the rubber belt, costing $18.00, and a 

 tower to hold the windmill, costing about 

 $75.00. Of course you would not put up 

 an electric Avindmill expressly for the 

 poultry-3^ard, unless, indeed, you are keep- 

 ing chickens by the hundreds or thousands. 

 But it begins to look just now as if every 

 farm home as well as every village and city 

 home will have to have electricity from 

 some source. 



While we are on this matter of windmills 

 and electricity, see the clipping below 

 which I take from the Scientific American : 



WIND-DRIVEN DYNAMOS. 

 An account was recently given in Ingenioren by 

 H. C. Vogt, of some experience of the utilization of 

 wind power for driving dynamos. Ttie mills descrili- 

 ed had sails 100 feet in diameter and an area of 

 3,930 square feet. With a mean wind velocity of 

 24 feeit per second, 290 horse-power was obtained. 

 Power is transmitted from the main shaft by a 

 series of cog wheels with the spokes in tension ; rope 

 and chain gearing were found not to answer. By 

 means of gearing, the speed of the main shaft, 12% 

 revolutions per minute, is increased to 1,500 revo 

 lutions per minute for the dynamo. 



Two li'undred and ninety horse -power is 

 certainly " going some." By the way, it 

 took me some time to find out where it is 

 that they have windmills 100 feet in diam- 

 eter. Finally we wrote to N. W. Ayer & 

 Son, of Philadelphia, who inform us as 

 follows : 



Ini/enioren is a mechanical and engineering publi- 

 cation published in Copenhagen, Denmark. 



From the above it seems that it is Den- 

 mark that is making such tremendous use 

 of the wind for generating electricity. Now, 

 they are certainly doing things there on a 

 larger scale than the Wind Electric Cor- 

 poration; but I think they will soon (if 

 they have not already) get rid of their 

 " cog-wheels " and other like " contrap- 

 tions," and use a simple rubber belt as we 

 do. 



burbank's sorghum popcorn. 



On page 702, Gleanings for November, I 

 made brief mention of this; but I omitted 

 one particular ]ioint. The grains of this 

 new popcorn are so small and needlelike 

 that they bother us by slipping thru an 

 ordinary corn-popper. 



No. 1 shows ordinary grains of popcorn. 



No. 2 sliows our Burbank sorghiun pop- 

 corn, and the popped-out grains ai'e shown 

 above from the Burbank popcorn. When 

 I came to see the way this corn pops out 1 

 uttered a shout. Why, it almost seems 

 ridiculous to think the little slender grains 

 close to Fig. 2 could i^op out into the beau- 

 tiful snowy grains above. Popcorn is a good 

 and wholesome food; but who would have 

 supposed, if he had not seen it, that such 

 a large amount of rich nourishing food 

 could be stored up in that little grain close 



" Before, and after." Burbank's new popcorn. 



to Fig. 2? After I had finished my picture, 

 some one asked why I did not show the 

 popped-out grains of No. 1. The fact is, I 

 forgot it; but they were nothing near as 

 large nor as Avhite as the Burbank grains. 

 So many of these little grains slip thru 

 the corn-popper that one will have to get 

 one of finer mesh or else use a sheetiron 

 popper. We now pop our corn over a gas 

 stove, and any kind of wire-cloth popper 

 makes more or less litter. Perhaps a sheet- 

 iron popper will be more tidy and cleanly 

 where either gas or gasoline is used to do 

 the popping. As I said in the November 

 issue, any subscriber to Gleanings can have 

 a few of the grains of sorghum popcorn 

 by sending us a stamped addressed envel- 

 ope. 



