Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/864

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848

��Popular Science Monthly

���The cane, with sewing-bag attached, is stuck into ground near chair, leaving you unencumbered

Red Cross Knitters and Sewers, Please Learn How to Use a Cane

IF you enjoy sewing out-of-doors, but object to a lap-full of the necessary materials, here is a little device which will make sewing in the garden an unalloyed pleasure. And best of all, you may not have to buy a single article in order to have this attractive combination sewing- bag and table.

Take a cane and attach to it a cretonne bag about twelve inches long, and divided into two parts. Stick the cane into the ground, and you can sew as com- fortably as if you were indoors.

��A Soap Bubble Can Be Made to Last for Months

THE air of an ordinary room is filled with tiny particles of matter which fall on the airy soap bubble, alter the surface tension, and — poof — it is gone. The effect of these minute particles on the stability of bubbles was first brought to light by Sir James Dewar. He ex- perimented in clarified air until he was able to produce bubbles which lasted for months. He has even produced a soap film, which was a year old recently and which seems to remain just as it was made.

So tell the children that the secret of successful soap bubbling is to have a perfectly pure soap-solution and to blow the bubbles in and with air that is also perfectly pure.

��Soap and Fertilizer from Dead Locusts

10CUSTS are plenti- ^ ful in Uruguay and the farmers of that re- public are compelled to keep up a constant war against them. Millions of these destructive in- .sects are killed every year. Recently it was learned that soap, ferti- lizer and lubricating oil may be obtained from the dead locusts, and in the future they will be utilized for that purpose.

��Removable glass top

��Water tar\K-

��Individual Protective Housing for Delicate Plants

FOR the protection of transplanted hothouse plants, Mr. John C. Mueller of St. Louis has invented a device which may be described as an individual pro- tective housing with hothouse and irriga- tion features. The box-like device with a slanting top is placed over the plant which needs protection and is secured by pressing the lower edges of the structure into the ground. A removable top with strips of glass and ventilated by holes with raised edges, calculated to keep the rain-water from flooding the plant, is provided. If desired, a water tank may be placed in the upper part of the housing, from which water* may be slowly supplied continu- ously to the growing

���plant.

��Lxter\3ior\ supports

��This device protects the deHcate plant from excessive cold, heat, rain, and wind

��In case the growth of the plant should make it needful, a second or even a third story may be placed upon the original structure.

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