NOVK.MP.ER, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



883 



out for quite a uuniber of miles more, 

 especially on level ground. It is not ad- 

 visable to exhaust the batteries down to the 

 last half-mile; and it is important, also, 

 when j-ou start to charge it, to see that it is 

 filled clear up. Friend Forrest is a ci'ank 

 on storage batteries as well as on windmills, 

 and he and I had some very interesting ex- 

 periences to relate, as you may guess, in 

 regard to storage batteries. 



In the home they have a suction vacuum 

 carpet-cleaner, an electric toaster, warming- 

 apparatus, electric fans, various kinds of 

 lamps ; and a young son, who is a veritable 

 " chip off the old block," until very recently 

 had a pretty wireless outfit ; but " Uncle 

 Samuel" suggested ( *?) that he take it down. 



When I first got up by the barn I found 

 they were busy preparing to put up a silo 

 to hold their big crop of corn. As the lo- 

 cation is a natural gravel hill, in order to 

 save going up so high they had dug down 

 perhaps twelve or fifteen feet. A carrier, 

 such as is used for moving manure from 

 stables, was let down into this pit, and I 

 should say nearly half a wagonload of 

 stones and gravel was shoveled into it. 

 When I saw the rope hitched on to such a 

 heavy load I said, " Why, friend Forrest, 

 you do not expect that storage battery to 

 handle all of those awful big stones, do 



you 



(?" 



" I think it will handle it. We will see." 



He " pressed the button," and up mount- 

 ed the cargo of sand, gravel, and stones, and 

 off it shot to a wagon a little distance away, 

 dumped itself, and then came back to the 

 starting-iolace, all the work of thei sixteen- 

 foot windmill. 



There are machines galore all over his 

 buildings, ready to start up in an instant 

 at any time, day or night. There is quite a 

 nice engine-lathe, feed-grinders, corn-shell- 

 er, gTain-elevator, churn, washing-machine, 

 emery wheel, sheep-shearing machine, a 

 buzz-saw to cut fii-ewood which will cut off 

 logs, I think, six or eight inches thru, even 

 of hard oak. In fact, I saw different ma- 

 chines for different purposes all ready har- 

 nessed up for instant us3 all around the 

 various buildings and even outdoors. 



After we had sufficiently discussed ma- 

 chinery we were ready to look at something 

 else for a change, and so I looked over his 

 beautiful farm — eight acres of beans, for 

 instance. But the beans up on that hillside 

 had been injured more or less by frost two 

 weeks before then. Sweet clover grew on 

 both sides of the road as high as one could 

 reach; but the people around there some- 

 how have as yet not gotten hold of it. A 

 b3autiful clean strawberrv-bed had luscious 



berries (of th^ fall-bearing kind) just as 

 full of green fruit as could be, and some of 

 it just rijiening. A plum-orchard near by 

 was a delight to me in more ways than one. 

 They were just at their very best. There 

 were so many plums on the ground I could 

 hardly find a place to set my foot, and many 

 busy hands were gathering up the finiit. 

 Mrs. Forrest said they got only $1.00 a 

 busliel in Poynette; but she carried some of 

 them (I suppose in that beautiful electric 

 auto) to a larger town, some distance away, 

 and obtained $2.50 a bushel for them in- 

 stead of only $1.00. These plums I should 

 pronounce some of the best selection from 

 the native wild stock; and the great beauty 

 of this variety is that they never winter-kill, 

 and are never hurt by the frost. The trees 

 are loaded down more or less every season, 

 and never a failure. I think there must 

 be toward half an acre in the orchard, and 

 more luscious plums on the trees and on 

 the ground than I ever saw before. Some 

 way I had got it into my head that plums 

 did not agree with me; but I ate so many 

 just before dinner that I really felt worried 

 about the consequences and yet they did not 

 hurt me a bit, and I never felt better in my 

 life. Perhaps the native wild plums would 

 not do as well everywhere else as they do 

 on those great Wisconsin hills. 



NoAV a word about windmill power and 

 storage batteries. The objection has al- 

 ways been to wind power, as you know, 

 that it is very irregular ; but when you once 

 get this irregular force bottled up in a 

 storage battery, then you have the most 

 efficient and steady power in the world. In 

 my boyhood days I had visions of having a 

 windmill pump water into a gi'eat elevated 

 tank, and then use the water to run little 

 water motors with power; but such a tank 

 (aside from the expense) would never do 

 for running automobiles, because it could 

 not be carried around. The storage battery 

 can carry itself and have power enough to 

 run a earful of passengers fifty or even a 

 hundred miles or more. I asked friend 

 Forrest how much work could be done with- 

 out the storage battery. He said he could 

 inn his wife's flatiron, and it Avould do fair- 

 ly well for grinding grain, with a mill so 

 arranged that it would not choke up when 

 the wind slackened, etc. The older readers 

 of Gleanings will remember that I ground 

 grain with a windmill forty years ago, when 

 Gleanings was printed on a press that was 

 moved by wind power. Friend Forrest's 

 arrangemo'nt is something like this: When 

 he is chai'ging a storage battery,for instance, 

 wh^n the mill comes to a certain speed it 

 makes electric contact sa as to send a charge 



