The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-07-31
INDUSTRIAL.

The best housekeepers are those who
give themselves the least trouble about
UNTIL recently the Idaho Desert"
near Boise City, was supposed to be un-
inhabitable. Two years ago W. B.
Morris cut canal across it, and, irri-
eating twenty thousand acres of land,
now has crops that promise an abund-
ant harvest.
PROPERTY is the product of labor,
1t must be hewed out of the forest,
plowed out of the field, blasted out of
the mine, pounded out of the anvil,
wrought out in the factory and furnace.
Stale Register.
PRIOR to 1872 the Erie Railway paid
annually for new rails, and repairs of
rails, 1859 per mile. Since then the
road has been laid with steel rails, and
the repairs thereby so reduced that the
annual expense on that account amounts
now to but 1858 per mile.
A GOOD county fair, among all its
other merits, is an evidence of thrift
on the part of the farmers of the coun-
ty. A poor farmer cares nothing about
the fair. He has nothing to exhibit,
and he dislikes to attend, for he is re-
minded by the elegant products which
his neighbors display, what failures he
and his farm are.-IosUa State Reo;ster.
A NEW variety of sweet potato is be-
ing cultivated in Kern County, the ex-
treme southeastern corner of Califor-
mia. They call it Ocean Queen. Picked
specimens weigh from fifteen to eight
cen and twenty-five pounds. The yield
is so great that they are fed to hogs,
which thrive amazingly and make ex-
ira pork. Recent tests suggest that
they will make better and cheaper
sugar than beets.
A CALIFORNIA correspondent writes:
Paper bricks now being made in
Wisconsin, strike us as exactly what we
want here. One of our paper-mills
made few, which need but touch to
bring conviction. 1t is papier-mache
compressed. San Francisco shanties
will soon tumble to pieces. Yet brick
is Objectionable in this damp atmos-
phere. No country on earth has more
or better fbrOus material. Aquatic
rushes cover all our still waters, and
one of our mills uses that material for
its pulp. Then we have the paper
cactus in vast forests, in our southeast
ern deserts, which excels all others for
bricks. Such houses would need no
plaster, and they would be easily moved
on wheels. The soles of all Chinese
shoes are made of paper after this
fashion. Their shoes have more sense
than ours. They are made without
elevated heels, and SO shaped otherwise
that neither corns nor buniOns can be
generated.
AN electrical device has been brought
forward which, it is claimed, will ma
terially reduce the cost of silk reeling,
and thus make the production of silk
commercially profitable in this coun-
try. From their exceeding fineness,
the silk strands are liable to break
while being unwound from the cocoons,
necessitating close attention on the part
of the person experimenting the work.
The strands of silk from four cOcOOns
are usually run out on one reel to form
single thread, and one attendant can
not do more than care for two reels al
most. 1t has been supposed that nc
machinery could be made delicate
enough to watch this work automati.
cally. 1t is now asserted, however,
that the application of the electric cur.
rent accomplishes this purpose. By
running the strands over carefully.
balanced wires, when one breaks the
wire drops into mercury and closes 9
circpit which acts on an electric STOP
in the reel-the work being thus stayed
until the strand is spliced and the cir
cult broken. In this way the electrici
ty watches the strands, and the at
tendant has only to notice the reels ant
start them when they stop. By thi'
means, it is alleged, forty pounds o
silk may be wound In week.-M 7
, Sem