Popular Science Moithli/ 



757 



cotton is blown through the pipe running 

 to the rear of the machine, where it is 

 caught in sacks or baskets, while the finely 

 broken up leaves and dirt are blown 

 through openings in the pipe by which the 

 cotton passes in its course. 



Working ten hours a day, the machine 

 is stated to pick one thousand pounds per 

 nozzle, or five thousand pounds per day 

 in all. Hand labor picks about one hun- 

 dred and fifty pounds. 



Weighing but one thousand pounds, the 

 machine is easily moved along by means 

 of a horse. The perfected model will 

 use a transmission arrangement to the 

 rear wheels, and be driven under its own 

 power. 



The superiority of the machine over 

 hand labor was plainly shown in the Im- 

 perial Valley, where the intense heat 

 makes hand labor hard to obtain, and in- 

 efficient when obtained. It proved easier 

 to obtain five men at good wages to 

 manipulate the nozzles than to secure the 

 picking equivalent in hand labor during 

 the hot months. 



A successful cotton picker, as this 

 promises to be, means an enormous saving 

 in the cost of cotton production with no 

 lowering of the profit to the planter, and 

 the release of hundreds of thousands of 

 badly needed laborers for other fields of 

 endeavor. 



We have heard much lately concerning 

 the migration of the negroes northward. 

 As they are the pickers of the cotton, 

 may not such a machine as this have 

 some little bearing on the future Southern 

 economics ? 



Here is the gang at work. The pickers are at 

 the nozzles and the machine is standing end on 



Grownups who are not still young enough 

 to climb trees are barred from entering 



This Tree-House Is in Massachu- 

 setts, Not in Africa 



A MAN in Salem, Massachusetts, has 

 built a playhouse in a tree for his 

 children. It was given its lofty position 

 in order to add novelty to its other attrac- 

 tions. An old tree with two branches 

 extending straight out in two directions 

 lent itself admirably to the purpose, but 

 in order to make the location doubly 

 secure, props were put under 

 the limbs and a rod was run 

 through the main branch of the 

 tree and through t-he little house 

 itself to the support in the rear. 

 Thus it was made wind-proof and 

 rigid and firmly supported. 



Entrance to the house is gained 

 by means of a ladder, if you are not 

 agile enough to climb a tree. 

 During the summer, when the 

 leaves are on the tree, the children 

 of the family have a delightfully 

 cool and shaded place of their own. 

 Here they reign supreme and can 

 amuse themselves in any old way 

 they wish, without "getting on the 

 nerves" of the grownups. 



