894 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



son, the first meal of the creature here will be its last. Arsen- 

 ate of lead, three pounds to fifty gallons of water, is the poi- 

 son recommended for this spraying. The best time for this 

 is just after the blossoms drop. At about this time, too, the 

 plum curculios are beginning to be active in egg-laying, and 

 the coating of arsenate of lead will kill many of the adults 

 before much damage is done. Self-boiled lime-sulphur used 

 at this time will prevent scab and, to a certain extent, bitter 

 rot, and some of the leaf spots. A combined spray, therefore, 

 applied immediately after the blossoms drop, of self-boiled 

 lime-sulphur wash, to which has been added arsenate of lead 

 (three pounds of arsenate of lead to fifty gallons of the lime- 

 sulphur) is the best spraying material to use at this time. 

 A. G. Ruggles, Division of Entomology. 



Another interesting bulletin on this subject is published 

 by the New Mexico Agricultural Experiment Station (Bul- 

 letin No. 175) in which the result of tests are shown, compar- 

 ing the harvests of sprayed and not-sprayed apple trees ; the 

 sprayed trees showed a harvest of 81 per cent of sound ap- 

 ples While the non-sprayed trees showed a yield of only 33 

 per cent, the other 67 per cent being wormy. This proves 

 that it pays to spray but it must be done at the proper time 

 and in the proper manner with proper ingredients. 



So much has been said and written about 

 Lightning tne Lightning Rod agent and the victim- 



Protection for ized farmer that many people think of the 

 Farm Buildings lightning rod as a joke. There is no doubt 



, -0 , that much defective work has been turned 



and Jreople. 



out by unscrupulous concerns or agents in 



years gone by so that the farmers are mistrusting even the 

 very best firms in this line. Yet a good lightning rod prop- 

 erly put up is a splendid protection against lightning and 

 especially occupants of isolated buildings should see to it that 

 such protection is provided. Where houses are surrounded 

 by trees higher than houses the trees will act as protectors 

 since the lightning when it strikes usually reaches for the 

 highest point of an object which can conduct the electrical 

 fluid into the ground. For this reason ligntning rods are 

 made of some good conducting material like copper, iron or 

 other metals having a gilt point reaching some distance above 

 the highest point of the house. This rod is run then along- 

 side the building down into wet ground and it is obviously 

 necessary that it is insulated from the building by either rub- 

 ber, porcelain or glass insulator, so that when the electric 

 fluid descends it will follow the rod into the wet ground; 

 should there be a break in the rod or should be one of the 

 insulators broken, then the lightning will jump into the house 

 at such interruption and do usually great damage. Many 

 lightning rods do not accomplish their purposes because they 

 are improperly grounded. This is a thing which is very im- 

 portant and furthermore is dependent upon various condi- 

 tions. When the ground around a house is moist or when 

 there is a well available the lightning rod can be run right 

 into the well or moist ground, ending with a copper plate 

 say 12 inches square. But when the soil is dry then a larger 

 end plate must be provided so that the contact between the 

 plate and dry ground is sufficient to dissipate the electric 

 fluid ; otherwise a heavy bolt might burn out the whole light- 

 ning protection, the house included. A copper plate 30 by 30 

 inches, soldered to the end of a lightning conductor and 

 buried below the ground will be sufficient even in dry earth 

 to make the lightning rod effective. 



The most satisfactory protection and at the same time the 

 most natural one is a grove of trees, higher than the house. 

 It takes of course years to raise such trees, where nature has 



not provided them, and during the time that such trees are 

 growing up an artificial lightning rod will be needed. But 

 after the trees reach a height equal to that of the house they 

 form a very desirable protection against lightning as well as 

 other storms. The many branches and twigs of the trees 

 reaching into the air above the house will draw on the static 

 electricity in the air and low hanging clouds and will dissi- 

 pate it without the phenomenon of a stroke of lightning. 

 The trees especially have the advantage of always being prop- 

 erly grounded, as the electric fluid following down the trunk 

 of the tree will be conducted by the roots into moist ground 

 where it readily unites with mother earth. Thus it is seen 

 that trees may be depended upon as acting as good lightning 

 rods if they reach up high enough and are not too far away 

 from the buildings. 



Trees are however not a very safe shelter for people or 

 animals during a thunder storm, for the reason that lightning 

 may strike a tree most any time and the splintering tree 

 might injure man and beast sheltering under its foliage. 

 Also the lighting following down the trunk may enter the 'liv- 

 ing creatures and kill them. Hence people should not stand 

 under trees nor near high chimneys, or church steeples, tele- 

 graph poles, trolley poles, nor should they use telephones 

 during the progress of an electrical storm. Should lightning 

 however strike a person it must be remembered that such 

 stroke is not always fatal and that in a large proportion of 

 cases the victim may be saved. The effect of the lightning 

 is a sort of paralysis of certain parts of the body, usually 

 stopping the action of the heart and lungs; hence the affected 

 person should be at once taken in hand and efforts made to 

 induce respiration and circulation. These efforts must be 

 very persistent : the body must be kept warm and stimulants 

 must be administered and the work of resuscitating must be 

 kept up until the person revives. Always send for the nearest 

 physician in every such case. 



Defective lightning rods are perhaps more responsible 

 for damage and fires caused by lightning than any other 

 calise. This stands to reason as the lightning rod attracts 

 the lightning and then fails to conduct it to mother earth, but 

 instead of that permits it to enter the house. Thus if the 

 insulators of a lightning rod are broken or if the lightning 

 rod itself is disconnected the plant should be repaired immedi- 

 ately in proper manner; if this cannot be done it will be bet- 

 ter to take down the whole lightning rod, for the building 

 will be much safer without the rod than with the defective 



There is hardly a farm anywhere which is 

 Irrigation provided by nature with just the exact 



and Drainage amount of water for the production of the 

 Go Hand most satisfactory crop. There is just as 



in Hand. often too much as there is too little water : 



moreover, at times of the year when the 

 precipitation is at its maximum the water bench rises in the 

 soil until it actually drowns out and destroys the vegetation 

 it is supposed to feed ; the only way to cure this is to drain 

 the land so as to draw the level of water down to a point 

 where it will do no damage. This work is done either by 

 ditches or piping and care must be taken not to draw the 

 water off too much. Different crops require of course dif- 

 ferent amounts of water, but as a general proposition the 

 water should not be drawn any lower so the roots of plants 

 are able to reach it and draw it up for their nourishment. 

 Such drainage water should be made use of again for land 

 lying at a lower elevation as it has many rich salts in solu- 

 tion necessary for plant food which it took up while standing 



