Electrified Flowers The growing contact between farmers and electricians has
some curious details. Some of the flower-growers to whom it is important to hurry forward their blooms and vegetables to a particular date are now using underground electric wires. Grain, especially maize, is sprouted in trays, for use as fodder, by electric heat. These are but playthings as yet ; the more real use of the electrician to the farmers is in heating incubators, in warming nurseries for the chicks, in cooling milk, in lighting sheds, in milking cows, and in so easing a good deal of work that the woman can turn farmer without excess of strain or discomfort. It is perhaps most useful in poultry-keeping ; the extra hours of light may directly benefit the health and increase the egg-production of the birds—all birds are apt to suffer in winter from what is called " night starvation," for they will only feed when the light is strong. Many other animals stalled in the winter would be the better for more light. I have seen calves come out of their sheds in spring as blind as " trebly-bandaged moles." If you visit a well-electrified farm, such as the famous example at East Grinstead, or others like it in Scandinavia, you are chiefly impressed by the comfort and cleanliness and ease that come in the train of such light and power. The farm buildings and stables and yards become places where women workers are at home as they are within the house; and, of course, it is of immense importance to the industry to enrol the woman worker in a greater number of operations. This extra aid is being slowly but steadily secured.
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