United States Army is made up as follows: Bacon, 12 ounces, or fresh meat, 20 ounces; bread, 18 ounces; beans, 2.4 ounces; potatoes, 20 ounces; prunes or preserves, 1.28 ounces; coffee, 1.12 ounces; sugar, 3.2 ounces; evaporated milk, 5 ounces; vinegar, .16 gill; salt, .64 ounce; pepper (black), .04 ounce; lard, 64 ounces; butter, .5 ounce. Of this ration, just a portion is carried individually by the soldier, the rest, such as butter, lard, pepper and syrup, are given in bulk to the companies and then distributed to the men at meal time. This ration is greater than necessary, and the men trade in the surplus for delicacies.

ONLY THE RUSSIAN GETS MORE HEAT FROM HIS FOOD THAN THE AMERICAN, AS SHOWN BY THESE COLUMNS

A

CAFETERIA for hogs, to which they have free access day and night, where they may eat without money and without price, with none to say them nay! Such is the novel plan of Professor John M. Evvard of the Iowa State College of Agriculture, who has shown by experiments that hogs thus self-fed make the largest and cheapest gains, finish growing to two hundred and fifty pounds quickest, and give the biggest return for a bushel of corn.

Furthermore, Professor Evvard has vindicated the hog, clearing him of the chief charge which has lain against him for centuries. He has proved that the hog instead of eating like a hog, eats like a human being, only with a great deal more sense. "The main objection to Professor Evvard's discovery and invention," frankly admits Dean C. F. Curtiss of the Iowa State College, "is, that it proves that the hog knows more than the scientist."

Professor Evvard's invention is a boxshaped affair, divided into compartments, in which swine food is placed, just as human food is arranged along the counters of a cafeteria. Whenever the hog is hungry he ambles up to the cafeteria, or dairy lunch, and eats at will from whatever compartment best suits his fancy. He may eat gluttonishly of one food, to the exclusion of all others. He may gorge himself with corn when it is seventy cents a bushel, laid down; but eat whatever he will is the rule of the cafeteria, and it works wonders in the art of fattening hogs for market.

Let us look at the results of a few experiments with the swine cafeteria.

Last year seventeen 225-pound shotes were finished on blue-grass, having access to the self-feeder, or cafeteria, for sixty-eight days, the menu consisting of dry shelled corn, meat meal, whole oats, wheat middlings, linseed oil meal, charcoal, and rock salt. The hogs had access to one food as easily and as unrestrainedly as the other. They chose a balanced ration, for the entire time, with such nicety that they gained 1.75 pounds daily and fattened so rapidly that fiftycent corn fed to them returned a value of 72.7 cents a bushel in hog meat.

Even more conclusive is the experiment showing a comparison between hand-fed and self-fed pigs, taken from weaning to 250 pounds in weight, on alfalfa pasture and finished in dry lot when the alfalfa season was over. The hogs which patronized the cafeteria-or, in other words, fed themselves at willconsumed 364 pounds of feed for a total of one hundred pounds gain, while the hand-fed hogs, whose food was doled out according to the scientific theories of man, consumed from 372 to 419 pounds for the same amount of gain. The cafeteria hogs made their one hundred pound gain at a cost of $3.83, while the manfed hogs made theirs at a cost ranging from $3.97 to $4. Figuring the hogs at six dollars a hundredweight the cafeteria swine made the corn fed to them worth 83.9 cents a bushel, while the hand-fed hogs made their corn worth only from 75.4 to 81.1 cents a bushel.

Professor Evvard sums up the experi

ment in these words: "Peculiarly enough, the self-fed hogs, getting corn and meat meal in separate feeders, made the largest and cheapest gains, finished to 250 pounds quickest and returned most for a bushel of corn. This bunch at eight months of age weighed 250 pounds and were finished off to market twenty-six days before any of those from other fields were ready at their weight. The conclusion is obvious; the self-feeder is practical and economical; considerable labor was saved in self-feeding, and risk, interest, and responsibility were lessened by having hogs ready for market earlier.

"It is a peculiar commentary upon the good judgment of feeders," concludes Professor Evvard, "that they should have utmost faith in the hog as regards his ability to choose some feeding materials,

but yet should hesitate to trust him with grains, usually high-priced, such as corn, oats, tankage, meat meal, oil meal, and others. They have mixed their hog feed and 'doped' it out as so much unwelcome hash. Truly, the hog does not like hash any more than does the average human layman. Why should you expect swine to relish it as the one and only dish?"

Thus the hog, by repeated experiment, has demonstrated that by selecting his own feed, in quantities and at times to suit himself, he not only secures a better balanced ration than the most expert scientist can provide for him, but that he will also eschew hash and partake liberally of the highest-priced items on the menu and still return bigger profits for his owner than under the old-time, man-fed fashion of feeding.

STEEL RAILWAY
CROSSING

WHAT is said to be the

A COMBINATION OF BEAUTY

largest piece of manganese steel railway permanent way in the world is one of the crossings supplied by an English firm for the Primera Junta Station of the electric subway lines in Buenos Aires. The rails are of the British standard bullhead section, weighing ninety pounds to the yard. They are secured in cast-iron chairs, by means of oak keys. The rails and crossings are of manganese steel, the rails being rolled in thirty-foot lengths and weighing altogether about ninety tons. The total length of the layout is 520 feet and its total weight is 160 tons. The entire piece contains sixteen standard single crossings, four special angle crossings, and eight compound crossings.

FLOWERS BY THE BOAT LOAD

THE owner of a western home has

beautified his grounds by using a discarded Indian canoe as a flower bed. The canoe is mounted on stout upright blocks, so that the bottom will not rot away through contact with the ground. Holes in the bottom permit the water to seep through so that in every respect the boat forms a most satisfactory flower pot.

STORE MONEY ON SIDEWALK

SILVER CITY, New Mexico, is a town

where moneyor at least silvermay be left lying in the street with perfect safety. Bullion shipped in from neighboring camps usually is left lying on the sidewalk until reshipped, and the inhabitants pass by such shipments without taking particular notice.

This safety is not, however, the result of unusual honesty. Several attempts have been made to steal the bars of bullion, but never with success,

WORTH THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS These dirty objects, left lying so carelessly on the pavement, are ingots of silver.

EARLY in Janu

ary, 1915, the city of Austin, Texas, placed in operation its new hydroelectric plant which derives its initial power from the water stored in a great lake, formed by constructing a dam across the Colorado River; and although the dam and generating station were built at a cost of $1,750,000, the city issued no bonds of any sort to pay for it. The contractors who performed the work