896 



Popular Science Monthly 



This apparatus will inform the farmer how much lime, 

 if any, his fields require to make them productive 



Every Farmer May Be His 

 Soil Chemist 



Own 



EVERY available acre must be made 

 to yield to its full capacity if the 

 United States and our allies are to win 

 the war. Many soils fall short of their 

 full productive capacity because they are 

 sour or acid. This condition can be 

 remedied by applying a sufficient amount 

 of lime. 



To overcome the / T 



difficulty of determin- 

 ing exactly the 

 amount of lime nec- 

 essary to neutralize 

 the acidity of the soil 

 a simple apparatus 

 has been designed 

 and placed on the 

 market. A test re- 

 quires but a few min- 

 utes. Representative 

 samples of earth from 

 various section^ of 

 the field are mixed 

 to make the average 

 soil of a field. The 

 earth is dried, sifted 

 and weighed in the 

 scales which form a 

 part of the tester, 

 then placed in a glass 

 bottle. A carefully 

 measured amount of 

 muriatic acid is 



poured into a smaller bottle. 

 A definite amount of water 

 goes into the third glass 

 container, above which rises 

 a marked gage. The three 

 bottles are tightly corked 

 and connected in series by 

 rubber tubes. 



The action of the acid upon 

 the lime provided by nature 

 in the soil creates a gas which 

 passes into the tester and 

 forces some of the water to 

 rise in the gage. If no re- 

 action results, it shows that 

 no lime is present in the soil. 

 If the water rises to the mark 

 for three tons per acre or 

 above it, the soil contains all 

 the lime it needs. It should 

 contain at least three tons in 

 each acre and if the gage shows only two 

 tons it means that the field requires an 

 additional ton of lime for each acre. 



The simplicity of the device makes it 

 possible for the intelligent farm.er to con- 

 duct his ov/n experiments and apply the 

 remedy called for, thus making it possible 

 to keep the soil always at its highest de- 

 gree of productiveness. 



A Camouflaged 

 Well-Curb 



Fon; 

 hij 



An imitation, in concrete, of an old 

 Vermont well with "oaken" bucket 



^OND memories of 

 is childhood 

 days on the old farm 

 in Vermont induced 

 R. E. Sperry, a resi- 

 dent of Inglewood, 

 California, to place 

 a replica of his fa- 

 ther's well-curb in the 

 garden of his Cali- 

 fornia home. The 

 curb, roof supports, 

 roof, and even the 

 "old oaken bucket," 

 are made of concrete. 

 The well is a well 

 in name only, ob- 

 taining its water sup- 

 ply from the city 

 mains, but it serves 

 the sentimental and 

 picturesque purpose 

 desired. 



