=Labor─Saving Devices Involving Plant.= If the men are in a reasonably good state of discipline, it is feasible to make changes in the layout involving special apparatus or plant; and in deciding upon such measures, a question arises as to how much money it is justifiable to spend for a new plant. A piece of work under reorganization is ordinarily a piece of work that is more or less in financial difficulties, and the purchase of plant for the economizing of the work is usually looked upon by the officers as a dangerous move. Particularly is this the case when any changes of this kind turn out to be unsuccessful. A small amount of money wasted on special apparatus is always in sight──at the scrap heap, if nowhere else──whereas a good deal of money wasted in fruitless labor can be easily lost to view. If the amount of saving on a certain operation by the installation of special material be sufficient to pay for this material in a few weeks, the purchase of the material can be immediately justified, and the cost of the apparatus can be charged as _current expenses_ to be shortly recovered in the economy of the work. Where expensive and heavy machinery is to be installed, however, the matter should be gone into with the greatest care and detail. A few of the articles which come within the class chargeable to _current expenses_, are: 1. The use of water jets for increasing the speed of drilling in soft rock. 2. The use of hickory wands for stirring up sludge in drill holes, and increasing the speed of drilling. 3. The use of special explosives and good exploding machines, and of loading tubes for blasting. 4. Small grading machines for spreading earth and macadam. 5. Special wheelbarrows or carts for moving material. 6. Special small tools for the blacksmith, including a trough in which he can set his bits to be hardened, with the points in the water. 7. A sufficient supply of picks and shovels. Some of the items of plant that may be classed in the other category, are: 1. Special wagons and scrapers for hauling earth. 2. Concrete mixers especially adapted to the work in hand. 3. Derricks. 4. Locomotive cranes. 5. Cableways. 6. Bit─sharpening machines. =Labor─Saving Devices Involving No Plant.= Where the labor preparatory to introducing the improved methods is considered, it should be taken as equivalent to a plant charge as affecting the interest of the contractor. If, for example, it has been the practice to drill and blast immediately in front of a steam shovel on rock excavation, and it is desired to have the drilling and blasting so far ahead of the shovel as to avoid the occasional necessity of holding up the shovel, the money involved in the work done ahead should be considered in the nature of a temporary investment and charged to money expended on plant which will not come back for a period of perhaps one month.