576 



Popular Science Monthly 



The gasoline en- 

 gine runs the 

 blower machine 

 which supplies 

 air for the fire 



Boring a hole 

 in the roots of a 

 stump. Afire is 

 afterward start- 

 ed in each hole 



Blowing Stumps Away with Air — An 

 Agricultural Shortcut 



THE gasoline engine will play an im- 

 portant part in clearing two hundred 

 million acres of cut-over land in 

 some thirty states of the Union. 

 Gasoline engines have for a dec- 

 ade or more -been successfully 

 used as power for stump-pullers, 

 but the new method recently 

 evolved promises greater 

 efficiency. 



The engine is used to run 

 what is known as the 

 "blower machine." This 

 usually consists of a gaso- 

 line-engine, a blower, a dis- 

 tributor, and several lengths 

 of rubber hose with short 

 lengths of iron pipe upon 

 one end. The air in the 

 blower is divided into an 

 equal number of parts by 

 the distributor and is forced 

 through the sections of 

 hose to the nozzle, from 

 which it is directed upon 

 the fire. 



A one and one-quarter 

 inch auger is used to bore a 

 hole into the roots of the stump 

 at a sufficient depth below the 

 surface to permit of eventually 

 tilling the soil, the earth having 

 first been removed around the 

 stump to a depth of from 

 twelve to eighteen inches. A 

 fire is started at the bottom of 

 these holes by means of a hot 

 iron, the nozzles being 

 placed at the openings. 

 The air blasts keep 

 the fire going. 

 While these 

 are burning, 

 four holes are 

 bored two to 

 three feet away 

 at right angles to 

 the first ones. 

 Fires are started 

 in these. After the 

 its of holes burn to 

 intersection they 

 continue burning 

 stump is consumed, 

 so that the air blasts can be removed. 

 One man is able to operate five to six 

 lines of hose. As these outfits cost but 

 three hundred to five hundred dollars 

 equipped, and the cost of gasoline is but ten 

 cents per hour, this proves a very economical 

 method of clearing wild land of stumps. 



The owl paper weight which 

 holds scissors and paste 



An Owl with Eyes of Scis- 

 sors and Backbone of Paste 



WISE old Mr. Owl may 

 sleep during the day and 

 fly by night in his natural ele- 

 ment, but when the manu- 

 facturers get him in their 

 clutches they reverse the 

 order of things. The ac- 

 companying illustration 

 shows what they did to a 

 wooden owl. His back is a 

 tube of paste; those are 

 scissors around his eyes. 

 He is six inches high and 

 the scissors that shade his 

 eyes slip into an opening in 

 the front. As a household 

 pet he keeps company with 

 the housewife's workbasket, 

 the sewing machine and the 

 baby's scrap-book. 



