The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-08
From the Chicago Inter Ocean.


 . NE thing that very few persons
 know Is that United States gov ~ ernment officials play what would be to boys entertaining games ev. cry day as a part of their serious work of nations.
 There is one man-an old and grave and wise and famous professor-wno may be seen often in his office in Washington standing on chairs and desks, launching little paper birds and funny contrivances through the air and watching them soar and settle with just the same interest and delight with which boys and girls would watch them.
 If folks who did not know who he is were to behold him they might well be excused for imagining that the old gem tleman was growing childish. But prob- ably there are few persons In the coun- try today who knows better what they are about than he does. For he Is one of the foremost scientists of the Smithson- ion institution, and some day 1t is ex- pected that he will teach the world how to build flying machine that really will fly.
 Often. after he has played good and hard with the little paper toys, he dis- appears. Then the other scientists know that he is down in a 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 professor is flying his things the chances are that not far away other wise men are playing with little toy gardens. These are patches just big enough for children to weed and hoe.
 These patches are watered with small graduated watering pots, and with scales little pinches of fertilizer and other plant foods are measured out for each. Big men sit over them, and fondle the little leaves, one by one, just as children would do.
 But every few weeks one of the play CTS sits down at his desk and writes, and soon afterward the government Issues a pamphlet that tells farmers all over the world just how they can handle their farms to make them yield more and bet ter crops.
 All over the country are other men employed by the government who go out every day with butterfly nets to catch butterflies and grasshoppers and count less other insects. Some go out at night down in the shelter of shrubbery, waiting till the great blundering night moths shall be attracted by the keen scent of the honey, which they love. Often the moths drink honey until they are drunk, when they can be picked up by the bare hand without even needing a net.
 That is not bad play either. Yet that kind of play has saved the people of the United States millions of dollars, for the insect hunters find out so much about the insects that destroy vegetation and fruit and shade trees that we know now just when to look out for their arrival and just how to destroy them before they be- come big enough to eat the 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 tiny 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 those great kinetoscope machines that throw large moving pictures on screens, so now everybody can see a plant grow from seed to a mighty shrub.
 Only. instead of having to watch it for months and years, we can all see it within few minutes, for the machine throws the pictures on the screen just as fast as one may wish.
 This already has taught farmers and florists many things about plants that