THE DIVERSIFIED FARM. 



In diversified farming- by irrigation lies the salvation of agriculture 



THE AGE wants to brighten the pages of its Diversified Farm department and with 

 this object in view it requests its readers everywhere to send in photographs and pic- 

 tures of fields, orchards and farm homes; prize-taking horses, cattle, sheep or hogs. 

 Also sketches or plans of convenient and commodious barns, hen houses, corn cribs. 

 etc. Sketches of labor-saving devices, such as ditch cleaners and watering troughs. 

 A good illustration of a windmill, irrigation plant is always interesting. Will you help 

 us improve the the appearance of THE AGE? 



ELECTRICITY ON THE FARM. 



IT is reported that there has been re- 

 cently invented in San Francisco an 

 electric storage battery which promises a 

 revolution in the methods of using elec- 

 trical power. Hitherto the storage bat- 

 tery has not proven an unqualified suc- 

 cess, and the prophecies of its early uni- 

 versal use have not been fulfilled. The 

 great weight and expense of those hereto- 

 fore generally in use have precluded their 

 use except under unfavorable conditions, 

 hence the dreams of storage battery en- 

 thusiasts have thus far proven illusory. 

 Now, however, if what is alleged to be 

 "inside information" can be relied upon, 

 there is already in existence the appliance 

 that will astonish the world by its feats in 

 the field of applied electricity. 



For various business reasons the perfect- 

 ing processes whereby the new appliance 

 has been at last fully envolved, have been 

 kept secret, and even the name of the 

 inventor is not yet to be spoken in the 

 public prints. A well informed corre- 

 spondent of THE IRRIGATION AGE however 

 has seen enough of the workings of the won- 

 derful device to convince him that the 

 claims made for it are not impossible of 

 fulfillment. The actual cost of the bat- 

 tery is said to be less than $5.00 and the 

 weight less than 30 pounds, and the ap- 

 parently impossible claim is made that in 

 such a battery electricity enough can be 

 stored to run a 20 horse power engine ten 

 hours. The writer is not able to state of 

 his own knowledge that this is true, but 

 he has been so informed by a reputable 



gentleman who has witnessed its perform- 

 ance. If we assume that this remarkable 

 invention can accomplish even a small 

 part of what is positively asserted of it by 

 eye-witnesses of its work, then there lies 

 herein much encouragement for the far- 

 mer. It short it portends a marked 

 change in farm appliances and farm meth- 

 ods. 



Whenever a farmer may store electrical 

 power as he stores water in a tank or wheat 

 in a bin, the time is not far away when a 

 thousand items of farm drudgery will dis- 

 appear and an entire new set of easier con- 

 ditions will take their place. Whenever 

 electricity shall have taken the place of 

 the farmer's son as "chore boy," there will 

 be abundant occasion to rejoice. When 

 the churning, the wood splitting, the hay 

 lifting, the corn shelling and grinding, 

 the water pumping, the posthole digging, 

 the stable cleaning, the dinner cooking, 

 the house lighting and dish washing become 

 mainly the mere matter of pressing a but- 

 ton, farmers, farmers' wives, and even the 

 hired man may properly believe their mil- 

 lenium has come. But all this now ap- 

 pears to be possible within a short time, 

 and there are highly intelligent men who 

 assert that it is not only possible in the 

 near future, but is already a practical fact. 



No doubt a few months will be required 

 to put the plans of the inventor in opera- 

 tion, even supposingthat hisinvention will 

 accomplish all he proclaims regarding it; 

 but if the farmer is at last to be put within 

 easy range of a cheap and convenient 

 power for the manifold uses to which it 



