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Popular Science Monthly 



Utilizing Your Player Piano as a 

 Vacuum Cleaner 



THERE is no better vacuum cleaning 

 pump than 

 the air pump of 

 your player piano. 

 So thought Max 

 Rothfeld, of Phil- 

 adelphia, who has 

 patented the dust- 

 filtering at- 

 tachment 

 which will 

 change your 

 piano into a 

 vacuum clean- 

 er. You need 

 only to discon- 

 nect the air 

 pipe leading 

 from the piano 

 bellows, from 

 the air motor. 

 Insert the at- 

 tachment in 

 this, have 

 somebody 



A dust-filtering chamber fits in the end of a long flexi- 

 ble hose leading from the piano bellows. The suction 

 created by the piano pump draws the dust into the filter 



ground-up leaves of the hay of alfalfa. By 

 replacing the all-too-scarce wheat flour with 

 a considerable percentage of this alfalfa, a 

 bread can be made which is far more nutri- 

 tious than that 

 made from plain 

 wheat. The high 

 percentage of both 

 body-building and 

 bone-building ele- 

 ments in the alfalfa 

 makes this new 

 bread a practically 

 complete article of 

 food. The bene- 

 fits of its use will 

 therefore be two- 

 fold: the present 

 supply of 

 wheat can be 

 "stretched" to 

 feed a far 

 greater num- 

 ber of people, 

 and a more 

 ideal war food 

 can be gained. 



work the pedals, and proceed with your 

 parlor cleaning. The inventor also suggests 

 that should the air-mechanism of your 

 piano become clogged it can easily be 

 cleaned with his device. 



The device is nothing more than a flexible 

 hose having a wire filter mounted across a 

 small dust chamber near its end. 



Conserving the Wheat Supply 

 with Alfalfa 



A SHORT time ago alfalfa, the 

 clover-like plant which 

 grows so abundantly in the West, 

 was considered fit only for feed- 1 

 ing cattle. Thanks to the re- I 

 searches of the industrial chemist, 

 it is now destined to become one 

 of the most important articles of \ 

 human food. The present prob- 

 lem of the world's shortage of 

 wheat — that well-balanced and 

 so essential food — may even be 

 solved with the aid of this form 

 of "cow fodder." 



Elizabeth C. Sprague, head of 

 the department of Home Econom- 

 ics at the University of Kansas, 

 has found out how a most whole- 

 some flour can be made from the 



Making Bad Whiskey out of Good 

 Jam and Potatoes 



SOME German prisoners in the Holds- 

 worthy Internment Camp, in Australia, 

 rigged up a still of kerosene cans, bottles, tin 

 tubes and other receptacles and made whis- 

 key out of jam and potatoes ! It was effi- 

 cient enough to meet the demands of the 

 drinkers. Perhaps it was too efficient, for 

 the intoxicated Germans themselves gave 

 the secret 'away. 



