Arizona republican., 1903-07-04
pLAYTHINGs FOR MEN
Interesting Methods Employed In
 Scientific Study.

entertaining games every day as a part of the serious work of nations.
 There IS one man-an old and grave and wise and famous professor-who may be seen in his home in Washing ton 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 would watch them.
 If folks who did not know who he is were to behold him they might we'll be excused for imagining that the old gen. tleman was growing childish. But probably there are few persons in the country today who know better what they are about than does he. For he is one of the foremost scientists of the Smithsonian Institution, and some day it is expected 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 according to ideas gained by him from his toys. And while this pro lessor 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 garden patches are watered with small graduated watering pots. and with scales little pinches or fertil- izer and other plant foods are measured out for each. Big men sit ever them and watch them and peer into them, and fondle the little leaves. one by one, just as children would do. But every few weeks one of the players sits down at his desk and writes, and soon after ward the government issues a pamph- let that tells farmers all over the world just how they can handle their farms tC make them yield more and otter 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 countless other insects. Some go out at night with lanterns and honey pots and sit down in the shelter of shrub bery. 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 un- til they are drunk. when they can be picked up by the bare hand withour 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. fer the insect hun ters find out SO much about the insects that destroy vegetaticl and fruit and shade trees that We know now just when to look out fer their arrival and just how tc destroy them before they become big enough to eat growing things.
 Last year men in the agricultural department played at a most absorb ing game that surely would have pleas ed every boy and girl in the land. They planted seeds of many kinds in tiny pets, one seed in each pot, and then day after day they photographed the pots. Thus they made many hun dreds of pictures that, when they were all put together. showed just how the plants grew. And these pictures were put into one of those great kineto- scope machines that throw large nov ing pictures on screens, so now every body can see plant grow from seed to a mighty shrub. Only, instead of having to watch it for months and years, we can see it within d few min utes. for the machine throws the pie lures on the screen just as fast as one may wish. This already has taught farmers and florists many things about plants that never had been suspected before, although so many sharp-eyed persons have watched plants grow for SC many centuries.
 A few years ago the United Sates government imported the beautiful and valua ble date palm, hoping to make it grow in the sandy and dry parts Of Arizona and New Mexico and other spots of the United States, where ether domestic plants do not thrive. The date palm did fairly well, but not well enough to please the department of agriculture. so it sent one of its men away out to Africa and across the Desert of Sahara to find the cases and see how palms grow there. He found a gorgeous evergreen morning glory twining all over the houses of the Arabs. And then he found the beauti ful cases and when he returned it was with many camels, all laden with fine date palms.
 And these are growing finely now in our country. That was a real Arabian NlgntS play trlp that mas been WO1In lets and lots of money to this country.
 Some charming toys are those that every body may see in the many weather observing stations of the gov ernment. They are busy little wind mills. turning like anything, and fun ny little round disks on arms that dance all the time, and queer spiral glass tubes that move lead pencils over charts.
 A weather observatory would be tho very place of all that any child would select if it could have its way for a playroom. There are so many funny instruments and scores on scores of queer-colored flags and little gaudy- colored lanterns that ones heart quite fills with a desire to play With them. Yet even while one is looking at them turn and dance, those tempting toys may be telling of a storm that is kill, ing folk and blowing houses down far away. The little flags and lanterns, when hoisted, may seem anything but toys to the sailor For some of them spell hurricane, others talk of hail and rain, and others warn all human kind