HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1977-04-07, Page 28Page 28
Times-Advocate, April 7, 1977
MAZE OF PURPLE TUBES — The modern sugar bush is a maze of pu ple tubing as the sap is sucked by a
vacuum into outside storage tanks until there is room for it in the boiling tank. This is part of Earl Schilbe s
sugar bush near Bayfield.
Milk Marketing Board head
says report confirms fears
restoration began in 1956. He
mentioned too, Upper Canada
Village, Morrisburg; Heritage
Village, Calgary, Lower Fort
Garry and in Burnaby, B.C;
where none of the old existed; the
townspeople reconstructed what
had been there at three-quarter
scale of the origional,
Fort Edmonton had been
preserved many years ago by
dismantling and numbering each
piece; and carefully storing it for
reconstructing at a later date.
When King George V ascended to
the throne, the townsfolk of
Edmonton held a celebratory
bonfire and burned all the old
Fort. Now it is reconstructed; but
of new materials. Mr. Kelly said
that the best reconstructed
project in Canada is at
Louisburg, a fortress on the
eastern coast.
In 1938, the Federal Govern-
ment designated the site of
Louisbourg and in 1960 they
started to move on the
restoration program to recon-
struct. To-day they have
reconstructed the fort and one-
fifth of the town. It is possible to-
day in Louisburg to have lunch
in the same fashion it would have
been served to you in the 1500's.
Mr. Kelly spoke of the
restoration of the Benmiller Inn;
Union Station in Ottawa; the
Grand Trunk Railway Station in
Petrolia ; the Liquor Control
Board Outlets in Elora,
Ridgetown, Nigara-on-the-lake
and Front Street in Toronto. He
credited the LCBO with saving
these buildings above mentioned.
Kingston City Hall, Downtown
Halifax along the waterfront;
Christ Church Cathedral and the
Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver.
The foremost is Vancouver's
Gastown area with its cobbled
streets and gas lighting; the
main street in Kincardine and
Ridgetown were also mentioned.
Mr. Kelly showed some
beautiful slides of Dawson City
founded in 1889 and by 1896 it
boasted a population of 30,000. It
was a "rough and ready" town
with its miners and gambling etc.
The government is planning to
spend 25 million dollars, in the
next ten years to restore it. The
people during the gold rush came
to Dawson City by stern wheeler
and it was the home of Robert
Catr ca~vey--
beaten
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HOW IT USED TO BE—Taken on first farm south of Zurich on west side of road. Left to right are: Mrs. John
Fuss, Herb Wurm, Elmore Rupp, Emma Schilbe, and Mrs. and Mr. Louis Wurm. The picture was taken in
1919 and the farm was owned at that time by Mr. & Mrs. Louis Wurm, parents of Mrs. Emma Schilbe,
Zurich, and Mr. Herb Wurm, Evansburg, Alberta (formerly of Zurich), also grandparents of Albert Schilbe,
Bayfield. Mrs. John Fuss was a first cousin of Louis Wurm and Elmore Rupp was a brother of Mrs. Louis
Wurm. Making Maple Syrup was enjoyed very much by the family of Mr. & Mrs. Louis Wurm.
BATTLE FOR PUCK * Action was tense around the Wellington igOal
on this play as Brian Taylor battles for the puck, while Rick Ingram
moves in from the left to help. Gerald Weido is at the right waiting for
a rebound. Taylor sparked the Hawks over the weekend, scoring four
T•A photo
of their six goals.
FINISHED PRODUCT — Earl Schilbe, Bayfield poses behind some of the 700 gallons of maple syrup he
made this spring. Earl has no trouble selling his syrup as the demand is always greater than his supply.
OLD PROCESS/ NEW WAYS — Making maple syrup is still a matter of boiling maple sap, but the methods
have changed over the years. Above, Eric Schilbe of Bayfield adjusts the tap through which the maple syrup
flows once it has boiled down. Mr. Schilbe uses modern methods to tap his 2,000 trees.
After a cursory examination of
the findings in the report by the
Milk Commission of Ontario on
the public inquiry into fluid milk
marketing practices • in the
Province from 1971 to 1975, the
Chairman of the Ontario Milk
Marketing Board, Kenneth G.
McKinnon, makes certain ob-
servations on the contents of the
report.
"Although we have not had the
time as yet to analyze in detail
the findings and recom-
mendations made by the Com-
mission," Mr. McKinnon said,
"we must say, at first glance,
they appear valid and fair."
In 1975, the Board, which was
deeply concerned about the
excessive price for milk at the
retail level, as compared to the
price which its producers
received, called for a public
inquiry and was asked to make a
submission to the inquiry.
"As the Ontario Milk
Marketing Board only sets the
price to the processor for raw
milk delivered from the farm,"
Mr. McKinnon said, "we were
concerned about certain prac-
tices in the industry at the
wholesale and retail price level
which revolved around excessive
retailer margins, the wastage
associated with store returns, the
whole system of discounts and
the significant price variations
between markets in various
areas of the Province.
"The fears and suspicions the
Board had on these subjects," he
said, "have been confirmed in the
report of the public inquiry."
The Ontario Milk Marketing
Board has to justify any changes
in the farmer's price for raw milk
to the Milk Commission of
Ontario, whereas processors,
distributors and retailers do not
have to fully justify their prices
and any increases to any
government body or to the
general public.
"We are convinced," Mr.
McKinnon said, "that consumers
or the public in general, never
really understood or appreciated
that point.'
There are some segments of
the news media, professors of
economics, the Federal Ministry
of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs, and others, who blame
marketing boards for excessive
prices.
. "The irony of this," Mr.
McKinnon said, "is that the
inquiry makes the following
finding, 'the producer price in
Ontario in 1975 was slightly below
the average of the other
Provinces in Canada, while the
retail price was among the
highest'.
"In the Board's estimation," he
said, "this public inquiry proves
that there are organizations and
some of the news media, who
have been conducting witch-
hunts against farmers'
marketing boards and have been
hounding the wrong villain to
cover up glaring imperfections in
our free enterprise system.
"We believe," Mr. McKinnon
said, "that the Milk Commission
of Ontario's recommendation
that it should monitor the
wholesale and retail prices of fluid
milk in Ontario on a regular basis
is a stride in the right direction,"
The Board has not supported
the idea of price controls at the
processing and retail levels in the
past, he said, and we will be
reviewing with the Milk Corn-
mission the methods it will be
using to monitor prices.
Mr. McKinnon said that the
Board is concerned that the per
capita consumption of .fluid milk
in the Province be maintained,
and indeed increased, and that is
one of the reasons the milk
producers of Ontario spend more
than two million dollars for the
promotion and advertising of
milk each year to increase milk
sales.
Ken Kelly of Heritage Canada
was a dynamic speaker at a
meeting of the Huron Branch of
the Architectural Conservancy of
Ontario at the Little Inn in
Bayfield Thursday evening. He
was introduced by Nick Hill the
chairman of the Huron Branch.
Mr. Kelly said that Heritage
Canada is a national foundation,
sponsored by the Federal
goverment; the Secretary of
State and the Ministry of Indian
and Northern Affairs. It operates
on 1.5 million dollars each year;
which is the interest on the 12
million dollars endowment;
individual and corporate gifts
and membership fees. Created in
1973 by a number of prodigious
people in the business com-
munity; a 14 member board,
including Pierre Burton; have 4
objectives in mind. (1) to
promote area conservation
(consentration on older buildings
in urban and rural com-
munities); (2) pressure the
government for better
legislation; (3) to support local
groups; (4) to create awareness
on the part of the public.
Mr, Kelly spoke of so many
changes in the way of life. He said
that one time there were horse
and buggies.. now there are cars,
moving people from the rural
areas to the cities with a greater
concentration of population in the
cities requiring more buildings
both commercial and retail, Mr.
Kelly showed slides of the con-
trasts between the old and the
new; the Gooderham Building,
built in the 1800's and the C N,
Tower in Toronto.
Many once beautiful homes
abandoned because of lack of
funds to maintain them. He said a
home that had been handed down
from one generation in a family
to another is usually in good
repair because there is a sense of
pride in keeping it that way.
The Frontenae Court House
built in the 1850's was
rehabilitated in the 1960's but in
1974 part of the area was
demolished to make way for a
parking lot,
"But equally important," he
said, "the Board and milk
producers generally recognize
the nutritional and social im-
portance of milk.
"For both these reasons," he
concluded, "the Board believes
that consumers should be able to
buy milk at the lowest possible
price that is fair and equitable to
all segments of the industry-
producers, processors
distributors and retailers.
The Rideau Street Convent was
designated a National and
Historic Site and three days later
it was demolished by a developer.
There is no legislation to protect
that sort of thing; because it's
designated does not mean it's
going to be preserved said Mr.
Kelly,
In the late 1800's there was a
move to more awareness on the
part of the public to preserve the
heritage; especially those things
dealing with important people
and important events, such as the
cottage of Anne of Green Gables
and the Sir John A. MacDonald
home. Mr. Kelly spoke of the
tremendous restoration done at
Dundern Castle since it was
started as a museum in the early
1900's.
He also praised the work of the
people responsible for saving the
Goderich and Fergus ,jails and
said they were most important to
an era in their own right, Small
communities across Canada are
trying to recapture the past and
in Barkerville B.C. that com-
munity has restored as much as
possible of what existed there. It
was settled in the 1860's and the
Purple tubes strung from tree
to tree puncturing trunks before
falling away to the next tree,
tubes joining the forests lifeblood
with huge silver tanks and over
all the pulse and throb of the
vacuum pump, It's maple syrup
time in the modern day sugar
bush.
Gone are the spigots with tin
pails hanging underneath. Gone
are the horses and stone boats
and barrels. Gone are the cold
sticky fingers as sap spills while
pails are emptied. Gone are the
long hours spent collecting the
sap and the many people heeded
to do that collecting efficiently.
Gone, some would say are the
good old days.
Now the spigots are made of
pastic with strange purple tubes
connected to them on one end and
to a large central collecting tube
which runs from tree to tree. You
couldn't run through this bush,
rather you must continually duck
and jump over the tubing strung
from one tree to the next.
Everything has purpose,
reason and efficiency as the
vacuum pump draws the sap
from the trees to the central
storage bins where it awaits the
boiling tank. The tubes are purple
for a reason, they attract enough
heat to thaw those lines on cold
spring mornings, but they do not
attract too much sun as black
tubes will causing the sap to
mould.
The plastic spigots are high on
the trees this year. They were put
in place early in February and
there was so much snow the
freezing men on snowshoes were
forced to put them in high on the
trees. Now the snow has melted
and the tubes are left hanging
like some sort of purple moss
scrubbing to have them spotless.
Yes, things have changed in the
sugar bush. The process is now
cleaner, faster and more efficient
requiring fewer men and more
money. Still, the syrup tastes like
syrup has always tasted—sweet
and sugary and full of the scent
of the trees, The bush still smells
of sweet sticky steam permeating
the air with its goodness, The
children still come to see the
process and still marvel at the
miracle of taking sap from a tree
all watery and not verygood and
turning it into the crunchy
sweetness of maple candy. The
children run through the bush
still, albeit somewhat slower as
they duck and jump tube after
purple tube.
When they are grown, they will
probably tell their children of
running through sugar bushes
and of ducking tubes and tripping
and falling into the dampness of
1. Insist on full disclosure by
multi-national organizations and
set up a special branch of the
Department of Revenue to deal
with them, as many of these
companies now short change our
country and others.
2, Require countries accepting
aid from Canada to provide full
access to any fiscal information
within their borders.
3. Remove all Government
departments from political in-
fluence and provide mandatory
jail sentences for both parties in
graft and influence-peddling
cases.
4. Prosecute all white collar
criminals. In a system where
only a portion of tax evaders are
discovered and prosecuted
various factors can determine
the particular individuals that
are selected for full treatment,
5. Encourage enforcement
assistance from the public by
paying rewards for help in
detecting criminals, smugglers,
wetbackers, dope peddlers and
tax evaders,
6. Trade in raw materials on a
recripocal basis only. At present
our natural resources are
providing jobs in the Far East.
The secondary industries which
once provided year round em-
ployment in many towns have
disappeared, mainly from in-
flation, foreign take-over or
competition from imports.
7, Equal the tax burden so that all
income groups have the same
opportunity to defer taxes. The
present, Registered Retirement
Savings Plan exemptions are
loaded in favour of high income
earners.
8, Merge all Canadian unions and
their pension funds into one
national union that would
the forest floor. By then, who
knows how the maple syrup will
be gathered pr by what means it
will be turned into the sweet
syrup. Perhaps it doesn't really
matter, perhaps the increasing
efficiency and cost of the syrup
operation doesn't matter,
perhaps it is enough that our
children at least have the chance
to taste the natural goodness of
the syrup and look at a tree and
marvel. Perhaps.
Canada, which he did most in-
terestingly.
democratically protect and
equalize the rights of all
Canadians to have employment
at fair wages and provide
reasonable retirement benefits
for all,
9. Recognize the expenses in-
curred in raising a family and
increase the tax deductible ex-
penses accordingly.
10. Impose a celing of 6 percent
on interest rates, Comglomerates
and multi-national corporations
should not be allowed to charge
up losses in some companies
against profits in other com-
panies to reduce their taxable
income.
R.J. Paton
RR 1
Thorndale, Ontario
NAME OF NEWLYWEDS
ADDRESS
DATE MARRIED
SIGNATURE
711 eXeferTici1110,$'Abliorafc
mo, 850 Vote drutno
M. 1331
Old ways disappear
Purple tubes mark modern day sugar bush
E/s.RISMR,WeiM.
those as the tubes protect their
cargo from insects, leaves and
twigs and human fingers.
The, season this year has not
been a very good one with tem-
peratures not cold enough at
night to raise the sugar content of
the sap and now the season is
almost over. The sweetness of the
trees has again been collected
and contained and sold for $14 a
gallon and there is never enough
to go around, you can always sell
more.
When the time comes to clean
the tubing and put it away until
next spring it is flushed out with
Javex and water and carefully
removed from the trees. The sap
itself is used to soften the crusts
of sugar which have boiled hard
on the insides of the boiling tanks.
Sap is allowed to sit in a holding
tank ouside for a few days and it
turns milky and then vinegary.
This sap is then run into the
boiling tanks and let sit for quite
a few days. This softens the
residue boiled hard on the inside
of the tanks and when the tanks
are drained it takes little
many feet from the muddy earth.
The trees are having their
revenge this year as they yield
their sap to the throbbing purple
lines, the sugar content is very
low running at around one per-
cent for most of this year's
season. At that rate the tree must
give up 80 gallons of sap to enable
men to enjoy one gallon of the
syrupy sweetness it boils into, at
the rate of 2 gallons boiled off per
hour, with a good fire.
Leaks in the purple lines are
quickly found and sealed as the
tubes are transparent. The
vacuum quickly falls in pressure
and it is a simple job to see which
of the main. lines is carrying air
instead of sap and follow it back
to the source..
Nothing is wasted in this
operation, there is no spillage,
the steam from the boiling oven
of syrup is used to heat copper
wires which in turn heat the sap
before it even gets to the tanks
where it must boil and boil and
boil to get to the sugary sweet-
ness of maple syrup, Nothing is
added, only the impurities are
removed and there are few of
A.:10CMOTORMIEL. WSW
Photos
and story
by Cathy
McKinley
Service when he wrote such here, but. Mr, Kelly would focus
poems as "The Shooting of Dan on what's happening across
McGrew" and the "Cremation of
Sam McGee". His cabin r
still stands and has been ;
preserved. It is ironic said Mr.
Kelly that in 1953 the government t
gave an emphatic "no" when
asked for aid in the restoration of -
Dawson City; however in 1974
they reversed their decision and
said "yes".
Mr. Kelly did the narration of
all the slides and comparisons of
yesterday and today; the good
and the bad; the restored and the
fallen. His slides and com-
mentary were excellent. Mr. Hill
informed the group that $300 had
been received from the John Galt
Branch of Heritage Canada and
$300 from the Architectural
Conservancy of Ontario to
finance a photography exhibition.
Kelvin Jervis of Clinton showed
some architectural photographs
at the meeting.
Mr, Jervis has been com-
missioned to do the work for the
exhibition. The display will
consist of older buildings in the
county, Mr. Hill in introducing
Mr. Kelly said we know what's
Speaker notes interest in preserving past
TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR NATIONAL MORALITY