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UST peas! Think of itthree thousand acres of them, requiring an army to cultivate them, another army to harvest them, and sending out the product to thousands of people all over the world! Truly an agricultural novelty, is this, at Longmont, Colorado, where demand and opportunity have joined hands to create the world's greatest bed of this useful little vegetable. And the handling of this crop illustrates a new movement toward specialization in farming.

The system is complete. At a central point in this vast pea-garden is an immense cannery, the capacity of which is sixteen thousand cans per hour. Every pea in the big bed is within a radius of four miles of this cannery. Peas may be growing on the vines in the center of a four hundred acre division of the three thousand acre bed and thirty minutes later be undergoing the first processes of being made edible at the cannery.

The peas in this garden are sown with drills. A space nearly two feet in width is left between each double row. When the sprouts begin to make their appearance, the ground is harrowed and, by repeating the operation several times, weeds are kept removed. A little later,

the growing vines are cultivated like so much corn, the cultivator running between the double rows in the space which was left for this purpose at planting time.

When the harvesting comes at last a most interesting sight is presented. The wagons for the gathering of the crops begin their journeys to and from the fields. It is not unusual for two hundred wagons a day to bring their loads first to the scales outside the cannery and then to deliver them into the mouths of thresh

ers.

Instead of cutting the vines above the ground as grain is cut, the harvesting machinery severs them just beneath the surface of the soil. The weight of one such load as is shown in the photographs is about two and a half tons.

The next operation after unloading is one of separating the peas from the vines. As high as twenty loads an hour are fed into the threshers, ingenious inventions which break open the pods and loosen the peas as nicely as the housewife would prepare them for a noonday meal. An equally interesting feature of this invention provides for the yielding of the tender peas under this process first and the fully developed ones later. The threshing device proper consists of a large cylinder, which is filled with perforations. Inside the large cylinder is

MECHANICAL GRADERS THAT SORT THE PEAS ACCORDING TO THEIR RESPECTIVE SIZES.

another cylinder of much smaller dimensions. To the inner cylinder rubber covered paddles are stoutly attached. As the vines are fed into the larger cylinder they are both slapped by the paddles and drawn through fingers, the fingers being attached to the outer cylinder. The peas drop out of the cylinder through the perforations heretofore referred to.

From the threshers the peas are next automatically carried to a tank of running water. The whole peas sink to the bottom of this tank and the broken ones come to the top, where they are easily skimmed off. The next destination of the peas is the pneumatic cleaning machine. A little later, their weight is automatically recorded, they go into a perforated cylinder revolving in boiling

water, and afterwards
into one which revolves
in cold water. Mechan-
ical graders separate the
peas
into five distinct
sizes. Subsequently they
are carried upon a broad
belt between two rows
of girls, who watch.
them closely as they
pass and pick out any
split, yellow, or hard
peas.

In canning, the cans are automatically delivered to the filling machines where each one puts itself nicely, in position beneath the hopper. The filling machines measure and deliver just the right amount into each one. As the can passes on, a girl puts the lid in place. The soldering is done by an automatic invention which first arranges the can in position, next applies the solder and then the soldering iron. Steel baskets next transport the cans with their contents to iron retorts. Several hundred cans are placed in each retort and the lid of the retort bolted down. Steam is driven into the retorts and the peas are allowed to cook for at least fifteen minutes. They are then ready for labeling and shipping.

Meantime, the vines and pods, from which the threshers have separated the peas, are conveyed to stacks like so much hay and, as a bi-product of the industry, have been found to make excellent ensilage. This ensilage is shipped in train

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loads to the surrounding towns and cities.

The vast acreage of peas at Longmont is watered by irrigation ditches. The water from a mountain stream is conducted into a ditch some forty feet in

.

width and thence in laterals to the head of the rows in the highest parts of the field. Furrows, made between the double rows of growing vines, conduct the water to all parts of the bed so that each vine is provided with moisture.

New Search for Unknown Lands

By J. Mayne Baltimore

NE of the most important expeditions in the hyperborean regions-away up into the Polar Sea-is now under way. This expedition is under the personal command of Captain Ejnar Mikkelsen, formerly connected with the Danish Navy.

Recently the expedition sailed from Victoria, British Columbia, in the little vessel, Duchess of Bedford. This craft had been used in the general fishing business in Alaskan waters under another name. But the vessel was purchased and rechristened The Duchess of Bedford, and thoroughly overhauled and refitted with special reference to her long cruise in polar waters.

This important expedition is known as the "Anglo-American Arctic Exploration," and is under the general auspices of both the English and American Geographical Societies, each sharing a part of the necessary expenses of the expedition. It is understood

that the Duchess of Bedford bears the greater part of the expenses, and for that reason the vessel that bears the adventurous party of explorers into the unknown Arctic regions, was named in honor of the English noble lady.

The primary object of the expedition is to seek a large stretch of undiscovered land believed to exist in the Beaufort Sea, northwest of the Alaskan Coast, and incidentally to conduct geological, geographical, ethnological and other scientific works.

Capt. Mikkelsen is a Danish navigator of some fame, who has made two previous polar expeditions. Mr. Ernest De Koven Leffingwell, a Chicago geologist, who was also in company of Capt. Mikkelsen.

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CAPT. EJNAR MIKKELSEN.

Daring searcher for new lands in the northern seas.

when a member of the Baldwin expedition, is a member of the present expedition.

The party likewise includes Ejnar Ditlevsen, an artist; Zoologist George Howe, of Harvard, and seven members of the navigating crew making a total of eleven. Ernest Stefalssen, also of Harvard,

an ethnologist, has started for Herschel Island to meet the vessel at a rendezvous agreed upon, where the party will make a brief stop.

On leaving Victoria, the Duchess of Bedford has sailed direct for Kadiak. From there the route was laid to Siberia for the purchase of some Eskimo dogs to be carried on the trip. The vessel will enter the Arctic through Bering Straits, skirting the shore to Bankse Island, where a depot will be established from

THE DUCHESS OF BEDFORD. This is the ship that is carrying Capt. Mikkelsen on his voyage of discovery.

which various scientific expeditions will be taken over the vast fields of ice.

In the spring of 1907 Capt. Mikkelsen and Mr. Leffingwell will leave the vessel and other members of the party, to journey over the ice in a northwest direction, taking sufficient provisions to last for 140 days, already prepared in compact soldered cases. These men will take with them several strong dog teams, the intention being to kill dogs for food for the other animals as the supplies gradually decrease.

This separate expedition will be taken by the two men for the purpose of making soundings through the ice cracks, with the hope of locating the edge of the continental shelf and the stretch of land

which, acording to the theory of the explorers lies to the northwest of Alaska, in a wide expanse at present unknown.

The explorers base their theory on the drift of the ill-fated vessel Jeannette, and other North Pole bound vessels, and the known flight of migratory birds, the discoveries of Eskimo remains, and the stories of the natives who tell of land in the direction where they intend to explore.

After Captain Mikkelsen and Mr. Leffingwell shall have started on their trip over the ice, the Duchess of Bedford will bring the other members of the expedition down to Victoria, and there report the results of the cruise to date. Soon after, the vessel will sail again for the north in charge of Dr. MacLaren, of Glasgow, to find the other two explorers. and bring them back to Victoria.

When the search for unknown lands is successful, or the decrease of their stock of provisions renders it necessary to return, Mikkelsen and Mr. Leffingwell will strike across the ice towards Wrangell Island for the North Siberian coast where they expect to be picked up by the rescuing vessel in the fall of 1907.

If the unknown land sought for shall be discovered, a larger and much more complete expedition will be organized at once to make a thorough exploration of those Arctic regions.

It is unnecessary to add that the result of this Anglo-American Arctic Exploring Expedition will be awaited with great interest by the members of both Geographical societies, and the scientific world generally.

The last message received from the party was a brief letter which arrived at Vancouver, B. C.. from Capt. Mikkelsen dated Port Clarence July 20 last. Mikkelsen writes that the Duchess of Bedford would sail that night on her mission to the vast unknown North.

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German Wireless Kite PORTABLE wireless outfits are con

sidered part of the necessary engineering equipment today in all European armies. Under ordinary conditions, the exigencies of actual warfare will not allow the use of the permanent mast stations. Balloons and kites are therefore called into use to raise the aerial wire. When the breeze is light the tailless kite known as the Malay or Eddy is used. When the wind is blowing at thirty or forty miles an hour the box kite is employed. The string which holds

the kite to earth is fastened to a bridle on the kite.

The illustration shows an experiment being made in wireless telegraphy by a German scientist. The kite, it will be observed, is of good size, being considerably taller than the man who is supporting it preparatory to its flight. The long wires or "antennae" with which the machine is equipped, are plainly visible.

This is the very method employed by Marconi for sending messages across the Atlantic. The greater the distance of the wires above the earth, the farther the distance the message may be sent. Hence

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KITE USED IN TRANSMISSION OF WIRELESS MESSAGES IN GERMANY.

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