enny each.

** Clean Before Painting [375]

Apply a coat of raw starch water to a dirty wall before painting;
this, when dry, may be brushed or wiped off.

** Varnish for Electric Terminals [375]

A good varnish for electric terminals is made of sealing wax
dissolved in gasoline. To prevent brittleness add a little linseed
oil.

** Measuring the Height of a Tree [376]

[Illustration: Method of Applying the Triangle Measure]

"Near the end of the season our boy announced the height of
our tall maple tree to be 33 ft.
"'Why, how do you know?' was the general question.
"'Measured it.' "'How?'
"'Foot rule and yardstick.'
"'You didn't climb that tall tree?' his mother asked anxiously.
"'No'm; I found the length of the shadow and measured that.'
"'But the length of the shadow changes.'
"'Yes'm; but twice a day the shadows are just as long as the
things themselves. I've been trying it all summer. I drove a
stick into the ground, and when its shadow was just as long as
the stick I knew that the shadow of the tree would be just as
long as the tree, and that's 33 ft.'"

The above paragraph appeared in one of the daily papers which come
to our office. The item was headed, "A Clever Boy." Now we do not
know who this advertised boy was, but we knew quite as clever a
boy, one who could have got the approximate height of the tree
without waiting for the sun to shine at a particular angle or to
shine at all for that matter. The way boy No. 2 went about the
same problem was this: He got a stick and planted it in the ground
and then cut it off just at the level of his eyes. Then he went
out and took a look at the tree and made a rough estimate of the
tree's height in his mind, and judging the same distance along the
ground from the tree trunk, he planted his stick in the ground.
Then he lay down on his back with his feet against the standing
stick and looked at the top of the tree over the stick.

If he found the top of stick and tree did not agree he tried a new
position and kept at it until he could just see the tree top over
the end of the upright stick. Then all he had to do was to measure
along the ground to where his eye had been when lying down and
that gave him the height of the tree.

'The point about this method is that the boy and stick made a
right-angled triangle with boy for base, stick for perpendicular,
both of the same length, and the "line of sight" the hypotenuse or
long line of the triangl