OW can I reduce my fence post bill? This is a yearly question with every farmer in the country. In regions where timber is scarce and high in price constructing and maintaining fence posts is a source of great expense, and even if there is abundant timber on the farm, the labor of cutting and setting posts is no inconsiderable item. Unless fortunate enough to have at hand some durable wood the farmer is likely to be annoyed by finding a few years after he builds a fence that the posts need renewing.

Satisfactory fence posts are each year more difficult to secure. Substitutes, such as reinforced concrete and iron, are probably too costly to compete with the

wooden posts, and the only solution of. the difficulty lies in the use of cheaper woods and in preventing decay by preservative treatment.

The most expensive kinds of wood, such as white oak and cedar, which have long been used for fence posts, are too scarce and too much in demand for other uses to allow of their meeting the demand for posts. Fortunately most of the so-called "inferior" woods are well adapted to preservative treatment. This is especially true of the cottonwoods, aspens, willows, sycamore, low grade pines, and some of the gums. When properly treated these woods will outlast the best grades of untreated timber and therefore are cheaper and more satisfactory. A post properly treated should give service for at least twenty years and possibly for a longer period.

The United States Forest Service is constantly receiving inquiries in regard to methods of treating fence posts so as to increase their durability. In response to this demand extensive investigations have been made during the past two years. It has long been known that a thorough impregnation with creosote

would preserve timber from decay for a long period of years-in fact, almost indefinitely. Such treatment is commercially practiced with piling, railway cross ties, and other construction timbers, the

preservative being injected into the wood in strong cylinders by means of powerful force pumps. This method, known as the "pressure method," brings

HOT BATH OF CREOSOTE FOR SHINGLES. The pulley is arranged above to give the bunches their dip.

excellent results, but on account of the expensive machinery involved, the cost is too great for ordinary use in treating fence posts.

There has therefore grown a demand for some cheap and simple process of wood preservation adapted for timber in common use for which the pressure methods are too expensive. Such a method, known as the "open tank method," has been developed by which, with the use of a simple and cheap apparatus, fence posts and other timbers used on the farm may be successfully treated at small expense. It has been found that by immersing the wood first in a hot and then in a cold liquid, atmospheric pressure will accomplish much of what has been heretofore accomplished by the use of pressure pumps.

For treating fence posts, either one or two tanks are needed, which should be fitted so as to be heated either with steam or with a fire directly underneath. If but one tank is used the posts may be heated in the creosote for several hours; the heat may then be shut off and the posts allowed to cool in the oil until the desired penetration has taken place. If two tanks are used, the posts after being in the hot oil for the required length of time may be transferred to the other tank containing oil which has been warmed only enough to make it thoroughly liquid. These tanks may be constructed for treating only the butts of

the posts--by standing them upright in the tank-or for treating the entire post. If the wood to be treated has a wide band of sapwood, the creosote should penetrate to a depth of about one inch; if narrow, all the sapwood may be treated. Sapwood absorbs the preservative much more readily than hardwood; more uniform results will therefore be obtained if round posts are used instead of split or sawed timber. Posts should be peeled and piled for seasoning some months before being treated. The posts should be kept as dry as possible before treatment, and rain and snow should be kept out of the tank by roofing it.

The cost of treating posts depends upon the cost of the apparatus, the price

of labor, the number of posts to be treated per day, and the cost of creosote. The cost of the apparatus may be merely nominal if an old boiler is used. A very satisfactory apparatus similar to that used in the Forest Service experiments, costs from $30 to $45. The price of creosote varies from 10 cents per gallon in the East and Middle West to 27 cents per gallon in the Rocky Mountain states. On the Pacific Coast it is about 16 cents per gallon.

If a man does the work himself, or in co-operation with his neighbors, the cost per post will be materially reduced. In general, the cost of treating a post will vary from 4 to 15 cents and give entirely satisfactory results.

ROBABLY there is no other visitation of Nature which wreaks such widespread costly havoc in commercial circles fog. The opaque cloud of watery vapor and dust particles in the air descends and enwraps the surface of the earth in an impenetrable blanket, deadening sound and obstructing vision. Locomotion is not only rendered difficult but often dangerous. A dense fog will more successfully hold up railways, steamships, and traffic generally, involving the loss of millions. of dollars in the aggregate if spread over an extensive area, than any phenomenon of Nature to which we are liable.

The plow will clear the tracks of snow, pumps remove accumulated water, but how can fog be dispersed? That is

a crucial question which has often been scientifically investigated, but without wholly satisfactory result hitherto. It is an elusive mass to handle, and though it may be temporarily cleared from one point, directly the dispelling medium is arrested in its action, the surrounding mass enclosing the open space will flow forward just as the ocean rushes to fill the gap made by a sinking ship.

However, an eminent English scientist has supplied a possible solution to the problem, one that has been subjected to practical test upon a small scale and found successful. It is electricity.

Some thirty years ago Dr. Tyndall observed that when a heated body was held in a beam of exceedingly strong light such as that thrown by a projecting lantern, the motes of dust floating in that beam in proximity to the heated body suddenly disappeared, leaving a clear,

potheses. Among these was Sir Oliver Lodge, D. Sc., and for the purposes of his experiments he had recourse to the electric current. He contrived a simple apparatus comprising a Voss or Wimshurst machine and a bell jar supported on a stand through the center of the base of which he carried an electrical conductor, the end of which projected freely into the bell jar. The second wire was also led into the jar and left with a free extremity so that there was a gap between the two terminals of the electric circuit within the bell jar..

This latter he filled with smoke, which is nothing more than fine particles of

mediately observed. The minute particles of dust instantly coalesced into flakes, assembled about the points of discharge, and finally deposited on the floor of the stand and the surfaces of the jar. In the course of a few seconds the whole of the space within the vessel was rendered quite clear.

This peculiar condensation is brought about by the finely divided particles becoming electrified and thereby attracting each other in just the same manner as iron filings are influenced when placed near a magnet. The experiment can be easily carried out by anyone possessing a Wimshurst machine and a bell jar. It is