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Corliss engine, secured an option on an old ruined mill standing on the bank of the Shetugket, at Baltic, four and one-half miles down the river. The old water-wheel was still intact. It was connected with a dynamo, and now the looms in Taftville are operated by the mill in Baltic. The present location of the cotton mills at Columbia, South Carolina, is made possible only because electric transmission enables a distant water-power to be utilized. In Georgia, a countryman harnessed the waters of a creek which ran through his place, and with the aid of a dynamo lighted his house and outbuildings and operated his farm with electric power. Later he found that he had surplus power to rent to his neighbors. Then he took a contract for lighting a nearby village, and finally he went into the electric business on a large scale, and now he is president of a trolley company. The movement in the East has, of course, culminated in the most talked-of transmission of all-Niagara.

tainous country. They even use the current to haul cars to the top of the Jungfrau. In Italy, they utilize that old Roman aqueduct which the Rocky Mountain miner spoke of, and it is now sending electric light and power into Rome nineteen miles away. The Rhone sends 15,000 horse-power from Chevres to

Geneva,and the Rhine yields 16,500 volts at Rhinefelden. In Norway, the waterfall known as the Sarpsfos operates a great aluminum factory. In Sweden, the inventor, DeLavel, secured control of most of the waterfalls, and, in Finland, they are making ready to use every available fall to send currents into the dis

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tant capital of Russia. But we must come back to America if we would get a glimpse of the wide influence of this movement and realize the possibility of its future growth. The capacity of the Niagara plant is being doubled, and several of the California plants have been united into one great system. When the Niagara transmission line was built, it was thought that its chief office would be the supplying of electric light to Buffalo and the nearby towns. In a measure this was true, but the industrial phase of the installation is the more important, for around the Falls has grown a veritable city of schemes-a city of processes which depend more on the chemical action of the current than on its mere mechanical power. Many of these processes are possible only because the current and plenty of it cheaply produced is to be had for the asking. You might run a cotton mill with steam, for instance, but you could not produce carbor

ERECTING A TRANSMISSION LINE THROUGH THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

The city of schemes, made possible by the utility of the Niagara power, sent the movement rapidly abroad. Mexico had already established an eighteen-mile plant at Guadalajara, and a twenty-three-mile plant at Pachuca; and Canada was arranging to take 21,600 horse-power out of Lachine Rapids. But at Deptford, England, they built a plant to send 10,000 volts into London, and in Switzerland they got options on every waterfall in sight; and in the case of the River Suze they harnessed the waters to a transmission system that operates through twenty miles of moun

undum except in the electric furnace. Neither could you effect the electrolytic reduction of copper except by the use of large quantities of cheap current. And this principle follows in the production of certain bleaching powders, aluminum, and the hundred and one other things which are now produced at Niagara Falls.

In California the transmission systems have grown in extent until two plants exist each of which do service, approximately, 150 miles away, and the voltage has increased until 50,000 volts is no longer considered remarkable. Starting in the Blue Lake region of California, one of these lines will transmit 60,000 volts 152 miles overland to San Francisco and to Stockton, illuminating the Golden Gate city with current transmitted over a distance as great as the length of the state of New Jersey. The other plant, utilizing the waters of the Yuba River, will supply current to Oakland, 145 miles away, with tappings and offshoots at Sacramento and Nevada City on the way. The current will be about fortyfive thousand volts. Each of these systems will supply current en route.

Consider Africa, from which Professor Professor George Forbes, of England, has but just returned, after having made what might be called a continental long distance transmission survey. One result of Professor Forbes's visit will be the harnessing of Victoria Falls for the transmission of electric power to the mines of Mashonaland and Matabeleland, and an engineer named Shaw has calculated that enough power can be transmitted all the way to Buluwayo to run all the machinery in the gold mines for the next twenty years. This is the ground on which Lobengula held sway only a few years ago, and it is still as primitive as Yellowstone Park was fifty years ago. The Victoria Falls are part of the Zambesi, a river 1,600 miles long, draining one of the

most fertile regions in the world, and full of rapids and falls capable altogether of multiplying many times the electric generating power of Victoria. How civilization in Africa can be quickened by the introduction of transmission systems! The power can be used in the depths of the wilderness with as much economy as in New York, London or Paris; the lines can be tapped at any point en route, and branch lines extended in any direction, for any distance; at the end of each branch line, even in the top of the highest mountain or in the middle of the densest swamp, thousands of horse-power will be available; the immense forests of Africa can be cut down with the most improved machinery, which under the old system could not well be removed from the heart of a manufacturing district; the mineral resources may be developed; the new towns and cities which will inevitably spring up around each of these industries will be lighted electrically, have trolley cars, and as many mechanical comforts as any New England village has now, and all quite irrespective of the price of coal. And most of the foregoing applies to every other uncivilized country in the world.

Man has always dreamed of doing great things, and has attempted in his puny way to accomplish them, only to find in the end that Nature has a better way, and waits to perform it gigantically as soon as her secrets are found out. The earth is after all a great machine, and during the century just passed man has found out how many of the interrelated parts may be made to work at his bidding. At some distant day perhaps we may come to understand every crank and cog and lever of the machine. It may be that by accident or design we shall hit upon the master lever which will set the whole machine working for us. Meantime, long-distance transmission may be regarded as one of the cogs.

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THE INCREASED YIELD AND THE HARDIER QUALITY OF NEW
VARIETIES, WHEREBY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN VALUE ARE
ADDED TO THE GRAIN PRODUCT, AND THE CHANCE OF BAD
CROPS DIMINISHED-A TRIUMPH OF SCIENCE IN AGRICULTURE

A

BY

W. S. HARWOOD

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REVOLUTION larger in yield than the old wheats, and better in the produc- able to withstand unfavorable weather and tion of wheat is prom- disease, but they are as rich in essential food ised the beginnings qualities. During the summer of 1900 the it have in fact experimental stage was passed and actual farm been achieved by the trials were made; for a farm trial is the ultisuccessful experiments mate test of a new wheat. Whatever favormade during the last able results may be shown in the experimental ten years at the Minne- stages, the wheat must still stand the final sota State Experiment practical test in the fields of the farmer. In Station, associated with the fields it has now proved its right to supthe agricultural school plant the old, standard varieties. The conof the University of Minnesota. The aim crete results are these: a toning up of the was to make new breeds of wheat. Both wheat harvest, not only of the region where the yield and quality are greatly increased. experiments are carried on, but of the entire wheat area of the world; the overthrowing of the argument of Sir W. Crooks, president of the British Association, that the supply of the

A TYPICAL

SHOCK OF WHEAT

The new wheats, which are the product of breeding and selection combined, have been tested for every purpose. They are not only

REMOVING THE POLLEN

To be transferred to another plant

wheat of the world would soon become inadequate for the needs of the world; a marked increase in the world's wealth, millions of dollars being added in a single season in only one section of the wheat-producing area of the world.

The work of wheat breeding began many years ago on the great Vilmorin estate in France. M. Henri Vilmorin, carried on extensive experiments in the creation of new breeds, more than a thousand new wheats having been tested by him. I shall not forget a trip to his farms at Verrières-le-Buisson, under the guidance of the present head of the house, M. Philippe Vilmorin. Ten years ago similar work was begun at the state institution in Minnesota, not only to create new breeds of wheat but to carry them forward through a series of years until enough wheat of a superior variety should be accumulated to enable the farmers to make the final test themselves. This work has been carried on at no expense to the farmer; for all the results are for the benefit of the public.

To create a new wheat the pollen from the flower of one wheat must be artificially transferred to the stigma of the flower of another

TRANSFERRING THE POLLEN To the stigma of a wheat plant

wheat. Wheat is a self-fertilizing plant. Left to itself, it will reproduce itself throughout endless centuries. Great care is necessary in the work, and trained men are essential. As soon as the pollen is transferred-which is done about four o'clock in the morning at the hour when the wheat florets open-the head of wheat is encased in a tissue sack so that the work may not be interfered with by any pilfering insect or bird. Two of the best known varieties are selected, one for the father, the other for the mother of the new When the harvest comes it may be that the new wheat has some of the poor, and few of the good characteristics of the parents; or the reverse may be the case. It is impossible to say in advance what the new wheat will be.

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race.

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CUTTING AWAY THE FLORETS
And a head in tissue sack after pollenization

first harvest, only a handful of kernels is threshed out. This handful is of immense importance, for these kernels may become the source of a mighty race, destined not only to supplant the old wheats, but to add enormously to the wealth of the world. But the last results are slowly won; for the first harvest is very meagre, and the second and even the third are small. But after a number of years enough wheat can be garnered to sow the twentieth of an acre; and then come tangible results. To breed a new wheat requires infinite pains and patience. It has taken ten years to bring the new wheat varieties at the Minnesota Experiment Station to the farm test.

In the meantime hundreds of wheats have been proven valueless. Some were too heavy in the stalk, thus "lodging," as it is called, falling over in seasons of much moisture be

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