<x AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Hlome-made Gas-lLlight 
From Crushed Stone 
OR a long time City people were afraid of 
Gas, thinking it might “blow-up the house” 
or poison them in their sleep. 
But, little by little it came home to them 
that there were many more accidents recorded 
in the newspapers from carrying around Candles 
an! Lamps than there were from the fixed-on-the- 
wall Gas jets. 
And, the Insurance people soon figured this 
out in percentage, for their own sakes. 
So,—it would need a lot of searching today 
in Cities or Towns to find a Candlestick or an 
occasional Kerosene Lamp. 
Gaslight jor the Country came slower, with 
Rural Delivery and the Rural Telephone. 
Because “Rural Gaslight’? must be made at 
home as Candles were,—and Country Folk are 
not Chemists. 
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But, the ‘‘ready-to-make” Gas material came 
at last. 
Its name is ‘Calcium Carbide.” 
An experimentalist named Willson produced 
this weird stuff with an Electric Furnace while 
trying to make something else. ee. 
It looks like crushed stone but Quy Ss 
it acts like magic. SW > 
z And, it solved the Rural ==} 
aslight problem—instanter. were ey 
Operating under the‘‘Willson”’ Lig 
and many other patents, the “7: 
Union Carbide Company, with 
headquarters at 157 Michigan 
Avenue, Chicago, is now the largest manufac- 
turer of Carbide in the world. 
“Union Carbide” is made at the Com- 
pany’s immense factories at Niagara Falls 
snd Sault Ste. Marie, and is distributed 
YOU can make 
the Brilliant 
exclusively by Union Carbide Sales Co., through its 
warehouses scattered all over America. 
“Union Carbide” won’t burn, can’t explode, 
and will ‘keep’? anywhere for years, stored in 
100-lb. watertight steel drums in which it is 
shipped from the factory. 
When “Union Carbide” is dropped into plain 
water it produces Acetylene Gas which is ten 
times richer than the best City Gas. 
When this Gas is lighted at a burner, same as 
City Gas, it gives forth a brilliant white light, of 
exactly the same chemical quality and color- 
balance as Sunlight. 
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Acetylene Gas being ten times purer than 
City Gas only one-tenth as much of its flame is 
needed as would be required for the same candle- 
power of Light from City Gas, Kerosene or Gaso- 
lene. 
This means that only a very small fraction of 
the heat, with none of the soot and smell of Kero- 
sene or Gasolene is present. 
It also accounts for the fact that an Acetylene 
Light of 24 candle-power costs only about 3} 
cents for 10 hours, lighting; while regular Kerosene 
Lamps cost about 6 cents in Kerosene, Chimneys 
and Wicks, on the average, for the same 24 candle- 
power in 10 hours’ lighting. 
And, 40 Acetylene Lights need only about 
30 minutes per month of labor, while 8 to 10 Kero- 
sene Lamps need that same 30 minutes of labor 
every day for 365 days in the year. 
che eieck 
Compare 6 hours per year for 40 Acetylene 
Lights with 183 hours per year for 8 or 10 Kerosene 
Lamps. 
And consider the unpleasant kind of work 
such ‘Lamp Slavery” represents. 
Meantime, Acetylene is the most beautiful 
Light ever used, as well as the most convenient. 
Brilliant, cool, steady, soft, safe, and colorless 
as Sunlight itself. 
It is the only artificial Light under which pale- 
yellow, pale-blue, or pink are seen at their true 
value. 
Two million Americans use it regularly today, 
and over 348 Towns are publicly lighted by it. 
You will be surprised to find out how easily 
and cheaply you can make this wonderful light 
yourself. 
Not only light for every room in your house, 
but light for your out-build- 
ings, barns and barnyard, if 
you have any, and, what’s 
more, light that can be turn- 
ed on by the pull of a chain 
without the use of matches. 
Write us today how large 
your house and how many 
rooms you have, and receive 
our estimate and free books giving full infor- 
mation. Just address UNION CARBIDE 
SALES CO., Dept. D-14, Adams Street, 
Chicago, Ill. 
Easily! 
Acetylene Gas 2: 
y 
WITH THE 
Sunlight “Omega” Generator 
Only Automatic Generator with the modern INDIRECT 
feed operated by its own power ! 
INSURES ABSOLUTE SAFETY! 
Easiest to understand—easiest to handle! Nothing to get 
out of order! 
Costs no more than the other kind! 
Brighten up your home! 
Our Illustrated Book Free. Tells all about up-to-date lighting of country 
homes. Get it! Read it! 
47 Warren Street, New York 
October, 1909 
izer, and water from this source is usually of 
the right temperature. 
The weekly or semi-weekly bath is of first 
importance, and this, more than any one thing, 
will tend to keep the plants in health and 
free from insects; the best way to supply this 
is to take the plants to the bathroom and use 
the bath spray, first tempering the water to 
about the temperature of the room and sending 
the spray over and under the foliage so that 
every part of the plant is thoroughly washed. 
If there is no bathroom convenient, then the 
plants may be carried to the kitchen or laun- 
dry and a short hose attached to the water 
supply used, or a watering-pot employed, but 
plants should not be carried through cold halls 
or rooms when wet, and if this can not be 
avoided then it will be better to give them 
their bath where they grow by means of a 
zinc tube and watering-pot. ‘This, in the case 
of small plants, is not difficult, and the weekly 
bath may be supplemented by a daily spraying 
with a rubber sprinkler, preferably of the 
crooked-necked variety. 
Weak-limbed, straggly plants, like the ivy 
geraniums, petunias and the like, should be 
carefully staked, using neat bamboo stakes for 
the purpose or other sightly supports. 
If good soil and suitable fertilizer has been 
used in potting the plants in the fall, little if 
any further enrichment will be necessary dur- 
ing the winter. It is a good plan to combine a 
small quantity of bone meal with the soil in 
the pot, as this is quite lasting in its effects, 
but liquid fertilizer should never be given to 
plants which are not already growing; weak, 
backward plants which can not assimilate the 
food already in the soil will be simply given 
an attack of indigestion by the presence of more 
food. Ammonia, which is not a food but a 
stimulant, may be given in weak doses occa- 
sionally to create a desire for food, but that 
is all. 
Over-watering is one of the chief sins of 
treatment which indoor plants receive.  Al- 
most all plants are benefited by being allowed 
to become nearly dry between waterings; wet 
soil and poor drainage means sour soil—a con- 
dition no plant can endure and remain healthy, 
and it is to this cause we must look in nine 
times out of ten when a plant becomes ailing; 
the plant should be turned out of the pot by 
placing the fingers over the soil and reversing 
the pot and giving it a sharp tap against the 
side of the table, when the ball of earth will 
roll out in the hand and the condition of the 
roots may be examined; if no white roots ap- 
pear and few if any brown ones, it is an indica- 
tion that the plant is occupying too large a 
pot, and it will be better to remove a portion 
of the earth and repot in a smaller one, using 
good drainage and packing the earth very 
firmly about the roots if the plant is a hard- 
wooded one, more lightly if of soft, succulent 
growth, like the begonias or impatians, Prim- 
roses, which are inclined to decay at the crown, 
should have the earth higher at this point, 
while heliotropes, on the other hand, which 
make a close, fibrous mat of root, difficult of 
penetration by water, should rather be lower 
than higher at the sides of the pot that 
the water may soak down through the roots 
rather than run off between the pot and the 
ball of earth; it will also be well to open a 
few channels for it by running a pencil down 
into the soil. 
Where there is found a good growth of 
new roots the plants should be carefully re- 
turned to the pot and allowed time to give 
results; it is all right, and probably only needs 
a little time to produce flowers; at this time 
if there is doubt of the fertility of the soil, a 
little weak liquid manure may be given or a 
little bone meal sprinkled over the surface of 
the soil and worked into it with a fork. 
Suitable soil for repotting should be pro- 
