Thursday’s ad is entitled Dad Takes On All Comers, and the illustration was done in 1954 by Douglass Crockwell. It’s #96 in a series entitled “Home Life in America,” also known as the Beer Belongs series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation ran from 1945 to 1956. In this ad, a backyard croquet match is taking place during a barbecue. And apparently Dad is a ringer. He stands smugly, while a young woman (his daughter?) is about to take her turn, and Mom is telling someone to shut up, perhaps trying to effect a loss for her husband. But she also has a tray of beer, which may help.
Archives for July 7, 2016
Patent No. 4276738A: Hop Picking Machine
Today in 1981, US Patent 4276738 A was issued, an invention of Dominick Ferraro, for his “Hop Picking Machine.” Here’s the Abstract:
A picking machine is described for harvesting hops from vines that have been trained over a low profile trellis. The machine includes two sets of vertical picking conveyors that straddle the vines. The conveyor sets are transversely adjustable toward or away from the vine. A forward picking conveyor set includes picking fingers that move continuously downwardly, stripping hops down from opposite sides of the vine downwardly onto horizontal receiving conveyors. A rearward set of picking conveyors follow the forward set with picking fingers moving upwardly. The upwardly moving picking fingers lift the vine, “stringing” the vine vertically and stripping the remaining hops so they will fall downwardly onto receiving conveyors below.