The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1902-07-16
SOME QUEER THINGS,
Uncle Sam Has the Finest and Most
Enhancing Of Toys. teetl1

One thing that very few persons know
Is that the United States Government
has the most tempting toys and plays the
most delightful games every day as q part
of the serious and immense work OF car
rying on the government of the greatest
of nations.
This is not because the men who are
at the head of affairs want to play, but
because they have found that one can
learn a great deal from play. Play,
when done properly, as everything should
be done in this world, is study. and the
child or man who plays right has gained
much useful experience without knowing
1t at the time.
So there is one man-an old and grave
and wise and very famous proressor-who
may be seen often in his office in Wash
ing.on standing on chairs and desks,
launching little paper birds and funny
contrivances through the air and watch
ing them soar and settle with just the
same interest and delight with which
boys and girls would watch them. II folk
who did not know who he is were to be-
hold him they might well be excused for
imagining that the old gentleman is
growing childish. But probably there are
few persons in the whole country today
who know better what they are about
than he does. For he is one of the fore
most scientists of the great smithsonian
institution. and some day 1t is expected
that he will teach the world how to build
a flying machine that really will fly.
Often. aIter he has played good and
hard with the little paper toys. he disap-
pears. Then the other scientists know
that he is down in lonely part Of the
Potomac River, experimenting with big
flying machines that have been built ac-
cording to ideas gained by him from his
toys. ..
And while this fine old professor is fly
ing his playthings the chances are that
not far away other wise men are play
ing with the most delightful little toy
gardens. There are patches just big
enough for little children to weed and
hoe with their tiny implements.
These patches are watered with lovely
graduated wateTins1 pots; and with beau
tful scales little pinches of fertilizer and
other plant food are measured out for
each.
Big men sit over them and watch them
and peer into them, and fondle the little
leaves, one by one. just rs children would
do. But every few weeks one of the play
ers sits down at his desk and writes and
soon afterward the Government issues a
pamphlet that tells farmers all over the
world Just how much they can handle
their farms of thousands and thousands
of acres to make them yield more and
better crops.
All over the country are other men en-
ployed by the Government who go out
every day with butterfly nets to catch
butterflies and grasshoppers and countless
other insects Some go out at night with
lanterns and honey pots and sit down in
the shelter of shrub beds, waiting till
the great laundering night moths shall
be attracted by the keen scent Of the
honey which they love. Often the moths
drink honey until they are actually drunk
when they can be packed up by the bare
hand without even needing a net.
That is not bad play either. Yet that
kind of playing has saved the people Of
the United States millions of dollars, for
the insect hunters find out so much aboul
the insects that destroy vegetation and
fruit and shade trees that We know now
just when to look out for their arrival aud
just how to destroy them before they be-
come big enough to eat our growing
things.
Last year men in the Agricultural De-
partment in Washington played at a most
absorbing game that surely would have
pleased every boy and girl in the land
They planted seeds of many kinds in tink
pots, one seed in each pot. and then day
after day they photographed the pots
Thus they made many hundreds of pic
lures that, when they were all put to-
gether showed just how the plants grew
And these pictures were put into one Of