Popular Scicn 



A Sweet Potato Digger That Lifts ^ 

 the Potatoes and Cuts the Vine 



A NOVEL potato digger for sweet 

 potatoes, invented by Oliver Cord- 

 rey, of Laurel, Delaware, digs deep under 

 the potatoes and lifts them out, leaving 

 the ground level with the vines on top for 

 a cover through the winter, instead of 

 turning the vines under a furrow as a plow 

 would do. The ground is left in condition 

 for raising better corn the next season 

 where that crop is used in rotation with 

 sweet potatoes. 



The machine has a pair of runners ar- 

 ranged at opposite sides of the beam, 

 which each carry a small cultivator disk. 

 These runners are adjustable vertically. 

 Back of the runners is a scoop, having up- 

 wardly extending rear arms. This scoop 

 is adjustably mounted so that it may be 

 tilted relatively to the beam. 



So long as farmers used the old plow for 

 turning out their sweet potatoes they 

 could not raise corn the next year. The 

 vines were covered at the bottom of the 

 furrow and the subsoil turned up to the 

 winds of winter, since it was necessary to 

 plow deep to avoid cutting the potatoes. 

 The new digger obviates this and cuts the 

 vines as it digs, thus performing what 

 formerly were separate operations. The 

 resulting sa\ing in labor is from $5 to $10 

 per acre — figured on pre-war prices. The 

 machine is of light draft, simple in con- 

 struction as compared with most ma- 

 chines designed for potato digging, and is 

 self guiding after being started in a row. 



As the dig- 

 ger is com- 

 paratively 

 inexpensive, 

 and the sav- 

 ing effected 

 is very con- 

 siderablethis 

 should prove 

 very popu- 

 lar, particu- 

 larly with 

 small truck 

 farmers. The 

 fact that the 

 machine can 

 be run by un- 

 skilled labor 

 counts. 



^ ."iSD 



A potato-digger constructed to lift out the potatoes 

 without turning over the earth like the old plow 



The little apparatus shown weans a calf 

 without separating him from his mother 



An Effective and Humane Method 

 of Weaning a Calf 



RUSTIC ingenuity has devised a num- 

 . ber of contrivances to prevent calves 

 from nursing while they are in the same 

 stable or the same pasture with their 

 mothers, but most of these devices are 

 extremely clumsy and awkward. The 

 device shown in the picture avoids most of 

 the objectionable features of the older ap- 

 pliances. The upper part is fastened to 

 the nose of the calf by a hinged clamp and 

 causes neither pain nor injury to the 



animal. The 

 lower part, 

 which is 

 hinged to the 

 nose part 

 and swings 

 freely, makes 

 it impossible 

 for the calf 

 to nurse, al- 

 though it 

 does not pre- 

 vent it from 

 grazing. 



This ob- 

 viates the 

 necessity for 

 keeping the 

 calf confined. 



