Popular Science Monthly 



303 



for a single year. Besides, the water of 

 this lake contains, in solution, borax as 

 well as potash, and the separation of the 

 two salts is not simple. Borax, being 

 alkaline, renders potash objectionable to 

 agriculture and useless in industries. 

 There are a few other sources of potash. 

 Sea-kelp yields a small amount; the alun- 

 ite deposits in Utah contain potash salts 

 of alumina, but no soluble potash; the 

 cement works are producing a little; 

 some is contained in the refuse from the 

 beet sugar refineries; but outside of 

 Germany, the total annual output of 

 potash is not over 50,000 tons as against 

 12,000,000 tons of the crude ore running 

 from 30 to 40 per cent, of pure potash, 

 produced in Germany each year. Since 

 the embargo of January, 1915, the price 

 of potash has risen from $30 per ton to 

 $450 for the same amount. 



A Gasoline Engine Used to Load 

 Sugar Cane 



THE old problem of handling a large 

 sugar-cane crop soon after it has 

 been cut, and before the cane dries and 

 its sugar evaporates, has been well solved 

 on a Louisiana plantation. A gasoline 

 engine power outfit is utilized for this 

 work and does it at a fraction of the cost 

 of man labor, and more quickly. 



Suitable grabs and hoists pick up the 

 cane from the small heaps into which the 

 cutters have dropped it, and swing it over 

 to be tripped off into a wagon box. The 

 wagons are 

 provided 

 with slings to 

 unload the cane 

 at the mill 

 or at the 

 field railway 

 by the use of 

 power hoists. 

 Power machin- 

 ery is much 

 slower to in- 

 vade the agri- 

 cultural re- 

 gions of the 

 South than it 

 But the waste 



Suitable hoists lift the fresh sugar cane from the 

 small heaps suid swing it into the waiting wagor 



has been in the North. 



and inefficiency of hand 

 methods must give way before the present 

 need for rapid harvests. 



If it weren't for these boards the horses would sink 

 into the peat quagmires of southern California 



Mount Horses on Boards. Then they 

 Can't Sink Into the Mud 



OUT in the fertile peat fields of south- 

 ern California, the heavy draft-horse 

 would be useless for plowing and culti- 

 vating, but for a wooden shoe, which was 

 invented by some ingenious rancher, and 

 which can be quickly clamped on the 

 horses' hoofs. With his wooden shoes, 

 the horse can walk safely on a surface of 



peat that quiv- 

 ers like jelly 

 with his weight. 

 The shoes 

 must be ad- 

 justed to suit 

 the habit of 

 the horse. If 

 he has a ten- 

 dency to knock 

 his feet to- 

 gether, they 

 must be 

 trimmed off 

 on the sides, 

 although it is obviously best to have them 

 as wdde as possible. They are clamped 

 on by means of small iron rods, curved to 

 fit the hoof. 



