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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1955-07-20, Page 611s1..r. e What,I„Ies Beyond -The-BrittobStrItces &c And/pews, You Can Grow Orchids In Your Own ' Home Here's the result of that in. quiry which I'm happy to pass along. I might warn you, how- ever — this pie doeen't keep. Xaeept under lock and key, that til it has thoroughly dried out. (reel the pot; if it's cool it's still meist.) 4, About food: Orchid plants are not potted in earth but in Osmunda fiber, which is the root of a fern which drains well and rots slowly but has practically no food value. With his plants Fennell sends out special solu- ble plant food that slimed be given to a plant in the propor- tion Of a teaspoonful to a gallon of water at each heavy watering. 5. Alibut humidity: The petted plants should be set on a shal- low pan filled with gravel or col- ored aquarium stones and then about ' two-thirds filled with water. The water should be be- low the level of the bottom of the pot. The object of this is net to water the plant, which it doesn't do, but to provide hu- midity in the air around it. 8. About repotting: An aver- age plant will probably need re- potting every two or three years. Those, it seems, are all the rules. When the flowers come they will last, if you leave them on the plant, for three weeks or se. If you use them for corsages they obviously will be fresher than anything you could buy in anything you could buy in a a store. And if you have the de- sire or the funds for that sort of thing you can get collections of plants that will provide you with blooming orchids, of vari- ous kinds, all year 'round. A super-fancy collection of six dif- ferent and unusual hybrids, for example, runs to almost $130, but you can get seven Cattleya, seedlings, which won't bloom for four or five years, for as lit- tle as $11, YOtt, too, can grow an orchid, in fact dozens of orchids, with little more expense than it takes you to grOW African violets, IVIarglobe tomatoes or guppies, Such is the newt from Home- Stead, :,Florida, where Thomas A. Fennell,, Sr. devotes a 30-acre 4'hanuriockel or profusely vege- tated bed of fessilizecl coral, to cultivating,orchids of practically any size, shape, color and species, Fennell has, in fact, the biggest outdoor orchid garden in the world, A part of Fennell's bugl, Mess, to be sure, is selling blooms to florists, who in turn pass them on, for five dollars and upwards each, to bridesmaids, transatlantic voyagers, escorts Of young women about to attend junior proms and celebrants of 50 years of matrimony, He also allows visitors, at a dollar a head, to tour the "Orchid Jungle," as he calls his hammock, and almost every day several hundred avail themselves of the opportunity, The revolutionary part of his trade, though, is shipping orchid plants throughout the land for householders with sunny win- dows and elegant tastes to grow for themselves, Fennell maintains, and his cus- tomers appear to concur heartily, that the orchid, in most of its varieties at least, is an ideal house plant. In its native state it grows in tropical — but no means equa- torial — climates, recited high in the clefts of trees where it re- ceives a good deal of min, It is not a parasite, but feeds, on such bits- of rotted bark and foliage as are washed down to it. Since it thrives in the uncertain 'con- ditions of wind, temperature, moisture and food that this airy location provides, the orchid clearly is, as Fennell points out, a tough vegetable, and in almost any home its wild habitat can easily be repreduced with enough accuracy to ensure that it will flourish. A Cattleya, or ordinary purple corsage orchid plant, which, selling for about nine dollars, is the lowest-priced item in Fennell's line, may in- definitely produce four or five five-dollar plants a year with a small amount of care. The general rule that Fennell invariably enunciates when he is asked about home orchid- growing is: If you are comfort- able in your home, your orchid plants . are comfortable t o a, Breaking th is generalization down into the specific kinds of care an orchid needs, Fennell will tell you; 1, About temperature; The or- dinary house temperature of be- tween 55 and 85 tlegrees is ideal for orchids, but it won't hurt them if 6ccasionally the temper- ature drops into the '30's, and it certainly won't hurt them if it goes over 85. 2. About sunlight: Orcnids need just about the amount of sun they Will get most of the year in an ordinary sotheast to southwest window — although in midsummer it may be advisable to screen them with gauze cur- tains during the middle of the day. 3. About water: An orchid needs one heavy watering — which means about half a gallon to a five-inch pOt, weekly. The water • should be tepid, should be applied in the morning, should be run right over the plant. The plant should under no cir- cumstances be watered again un- The .olelleet, pf .PrilaWs • three siatiene.411y. eeetly strikes hag now ended,, 'Popker.* are. feueWjpg. railwaymen anti seamen back, to WO:11*.. The event produce little- $0ellag that enything has really been settled. It brings rather a,disclosure that deeper and peee 'hap: more sinister problems. than wage differentiele and unions' mutual relations underlay the .strikes.. ellest Britons appear agreed that the issues involved did not warrant the foreseeable cost of these strikes But the issues were beyond influence by that part of indnee try ,against which labor usually Strikes. Employers could not fill demands of a newer union of dockers, for example,. that it. should have repeesentation on certain joint negotiating boards.. Only the older union could ,do. this. What lies struck many Britons is the irresponsibilty .with whioh strike leaders acted. And there baize appeared, not for the first time, indications that this was calculated irresponsibility to, ward national • interest which. often comes from Communist elements in industry. To the government this pre- sents a thaliehge to find new laws to curb abuses. Longer enforced periods of de- liberation before striking and requirement for a secret ballot on strike versus arbitration are two devices the government is now studying after consultation with union leaders. In any event, the strikes have put the British public. in a do- something mood. The govern- ment's job is to get it done with- out impairing hard-won legiti- mate rights of patriotic British workers. —From the Christian Science Monitor. • are a using GIANT VERTICAL RUFFLES of embroidered tulle flounce the skirt of this nylon wedding •gown designed for a special showing Of bridal fashions held recently 'at Niagara Falls, Ont. The ruffles are caught with twisted ribbon, which also. encircles the neckline and is tied in flat bows at the shoulders to form brief sleeves. The fashion show was staged by the Asociation of Canadian Coyturier. The only thing lazy about this cake is the name. When you serve it, every one will ask you for the recipe. 16I ZY DA, IZT CAKE 2 eggs 1 cup sugar .. 1 toosP904 I Cup pastry sour 1 teaspoon baking Powder 3/4 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon butter se7 *Ye Cup milk Mix this cake with an egg- beater. Beat yokes and whites separately. Add sugar slowly to yokes, and it stiffens, begin to add some of the whites until *31 sugar and whites have been used. Add vanilla and flour, which has -been sifted with salt mild baking powder- Being milk and butter to boil- ing point, and add, all at once to mixture with egg beater. Bake in a pan about 7 x 10 inches, lined with buttered brown paper, for 30 minutes at 380° F. As soon as you take the cake from the oven, frost with, the following: , FROSTING 3 tablespoons melted butter 5 heaping tablespoons of light brown sugar 3 tablespoons cream . Cook until bubbly, then put en warm cake. Sprnikle with 1/2 eup shredded cocoanut. Toaet under flame. Cut in squares for serving. In many suggested menus you will see "Herb Butter" men- tioned and there have been several requests for instructions ses to its making. Well, here's One recipe. Herb Butter: Add to Vs cup soft butter, ei cup finely chop- ped parsley, 1 tablespoon chop- ped chives or green onions, and 1 clove of gerlic, crushed. Mix well, * ' Some time ago a reader of The Christian Science Monitor *eked for a recipe for old- lashioned sour-cream raisin pie. • Desert Silence DIDN'T KEEP IT There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbours good, One person I have to make good: myself. But my duty to my neighbour is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy—if I may. Robert Louis Stevenson. "What flavours of ice cream have you?" The pretty waitress answered in a hoarse whisper, "Vanilla, strawberry and chocolate." Trying to be 'sympathetic, the diner said, "You got laryngitis?" "No," replied the girl, with an effort, "just vanilla, strawberry and chocolate." A recipe for a two-crust sour cream raisin pie was requested In the same issue of the Moni- tor; more than 30 answers were received, Except that some recipes called for nuts and spices, and some made the pie without either, they were all somewhat alike. Space prevents the puhlication of more than one. cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves were the apices most often used. Sometimes a little vinegar was added to the mixture. "This recipe, has been in my family for years," writes Mrs. W. D. Estes, "We think it is very good." SOUR CREAM RAISIN PIE 1 cup sugar 1 cup sour cream. IA cup chopped raisins cup chopped nuts 1 egg, well beaten 3i teaspoon each, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt teaspoon ground cloves 1 teaspon vinegar Mix well the sugar, cream, and eggs. Add all other ingredi- ents, and bake between 2 crusts. * * And, to finish up, here couple of unusual recipes honey Instead of sugar. HARD SAUCE 1/8 cup butter 14 cup, honey Beat butter until soft. Beat in honey gradually. Mix thor- oughly. This is especially 'good on gingerbread. HONEY FROSTING 1 cup honey 3/2 teaspoon salt 2 egg whites, 'beaten stiff Cook honey until it spins a thread when dropped from the spoon. Add salt to egg whites; beat stiff. Pour honey slowly over egg whites; beat until frosting holds its shape (easiest to do with an electric mixer), This frosting never gets hard or sugary — it always stays soft. • 79 VOLUMES Me STUDENT There were 179 academic li- braries in Canada at last count and they had 7,387,887 books on their shelves — about 79 vol- umes per'student. Of the total, 90 libraries were 'English langu- age and 89 French language, the former acounting for 59.5% of the total number of volumes. ► • p • e Ancient Device Helps The Blind WINS "PRIVATE WAR" — Chad- ton Heston was right. The movie star spent two years selling his studio on making "The Private War of Major Benson," The story of a stern Army officer's humorous struggles in running a boy's military school has prov- ed a hit in previews. culatirig machine in the solving of several mathematical prob- lems. Mr. Calhoun read one of the many articles written about the contest, bought himself art abacus, a book of instructions and went to work to familiarize himself with its use. He discov- ered that the Soroban, an abacus similar to the Asiatic one, was in use in a number of prim- ary grade schools He Soon developed an abacus, however, which reqeired ex- actly sixty per cent of the moves to solve an intricate mathemati- cal problem that were necessary in operating the Asiatic type abacus. This deviee he named a Calculex and immediately saw its value for teaching the blind to add and subtract. Instruetions were prepared in Braille and several of the Instru- -Merits were placed in the insti- tutions for the blind to be used by children in the fairth, fifth, and sixth grades for instruction in addition and subtractide Only. They Met with imthediate stic. eest, so much so that it was diffi- cult to get the younger Children to give them ate for others' to Use, ••• To the east rise the blue tips of the Rockies, to the west enor- mous orange-flecked tablelands. Between them, bands on bands of desert, dotted with gray sage- brush and chaparral, falling southwestward. Walloviing over its quicksands, ruddy brown, writhing in tumbled eddies, a straggling shallow rivet rushes down endlessly, A few clumps of sickly willows line either bank. Beyond, blank and empty, but for the interspersing of parched foliage, sun-blackened boulders, and prairie-dog holes, rolls the desert, mile beyond mile on either side, an endless wide space of silence spied upon by the jagged range of blue peaks from which the sun rose this morning, and the long line of great tablelands to which he will descend to-night.. Now the sun moves neither to left nor right; he hangs dead overhead and fills all the air with the raging blaze of an Aug- ust noon. The prairie dogs are asleep in their burrows; a rat- tle-snake lies motionless on a stone; even the coyote that loves to go slinking alone through the sagebrush has hidden himself somewhere and sleeps. Up above there is only the unwearied wheeling of an eagle helm side to side, turning in end- less wide circles around the sun, The desert below him seems burning: ashen-yellow, red-yel- low, faint blue and rose brown. Not a cloud flake breaks with its shadow the great space of sky and of earth. Only the river glides on ever fretting with its shallow brown waters the dearth. Silence — the silence of noon- day: not a whisper, not even a breath. . To the south the great floor opens wider till it seems to crumble away under the blaze of day into fantastic island-mas- ses, miraged peaks hanging in mid-air. To the north it closee up again, range on range of moun- tains staining with faint blue the horizon. Between these two the desert rests, without a break, without a path, without e track. Vp the crannies of the west- ward canyons are tiny mud- baked houses, standing on crack- ed Shelves Of yellow stone, These are empty and deserted and their inhabitants are gone, Down to the south, the Spate lard came riding centuries ago, with his pikernen, mules, and Musketeers, seeking Eldorado. — . Northward, French arid Brit- ish traders cease their fighting, exchange beads for furs again. Spaniards, Frenchmen, British, Indians, each have been seeking Eldorado in their own way Yet to this day the desert lies empty, a spot as lonely aS when it was treated roamed Over only by the beffaleeted entelopee Yet the path to Viderado lies . through this' very plate, Preen "13teekers end Granite," by johre Gould Fletcher. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper's — he takes the lead In summer luxury — he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsi- ness half lost, T h e Grasshopper's among some. grassy hills. —John Keats (1795-1821) eee. MOVIE THREAT — Meet Elsa Martinelli, latest Hollywood im- port from Italy. 'The former model's backers expect her to reverse :the trend away kern cool, pdlifik hi'fOines — 2, Yat:03 4 '1 BARREL OF FUN—Dressed in medieval costumes, members of, the Printers' Guild in Mainz, Germany, dunk an apprentice in a hogshead of water and give him a shower bath with a sponge. He doesn't mind, because the centuries-old custom marks his "graduation" from apprentice to full-fledged journeyman. • THEATRES' OMNI' SEAT ALMOST A iiiittiON Canada's f$6 regular theatret could 'seat 08,132 persons in 1953, 2.4% more than in 1952, Potential capacity teats niuitte plied by the nufribet of per- formanede during the year) Was 8180,591, an. increase of 1.1%. Less than three tenths of the Potential capacity was iintilite.c1 in 1661 as eoniliated Will 31% in 1652. OtibliUttiON414 1.:yetit..oftt White Rock hen may be 6' Bur riled OS She: tOh*Mptates her odd. 400 peaductiohi In the 06'0 two months the' has laid nine kirg, egt,like The one at tight ,Each' contained yolk arid d regular- iiied egg Inside, Large egg inches &bead the, Ion ever arid 'Weight' 9 ounces: Hernial eoo, 6'001' Oho of the 'OW giant's, theastireS and Weight 1% Another abyss has been bridged for the blind. The Asia- tic abacus, dating back to the pre-Christian era, and the prin- ciple of the slide rule, crusty with honorable age, have been adapted for use by the blind tor the first time in history. Julian Calhoun, a native of the "Low Country" of South Carolina, is the inventor of tnese aids which simplify mathemati- cal work for the seeing and blind. Fire insurance, and the ad- justrnefit of its claims, one of , the many successful enterprises which Mr, Calhoun has estab- tithed in Spartanburg, where he has spent his entire business career, introduced him to the slide rule and its efficiency in short. erring the time necessary to ar- rive at the correct sums for settlements of cleft-xis. But he detetinined to make an easier slide rule, quite an undertaking; ter one who has no special en= gleeeterig or triatheinatital train- ing, The result, of his first experi- ment produced a slide rule eix f eet in length, which requited 14 feet of wall space in Which to hang and Operate it. Tbie was. obviously` unwieldy so he went, back to his kitchen and $10 worth of tools to try something else. Finally he „evolved the Multivider, a circuar slide rule ttix or tvifelVe Wales hi rli ee-4 eie Whiell'is in getierat Sete In 194, a jApailese tieing Ail Asiatic abacus bested Arnetken With A incident ed1- • r . dAtit 34gSITAE, IlOgittAL COSTS $2.O The Cost of a day's care in tanadais trientel hospitals tiVee 'edged 0.10 in 1651 arid peoeih= vial averages ranged from a loW of $1.89 in 'elected to A high Of $1:38 Newfoundland. 1WO-IN-ONES-Mike Clyde, 11, displays what he says is a totrta,, to-potato vine, WhiCh he grew in the fatnily garden plot., in' his right hand are threegNiallr hard, green tomatoes attached to the ehd of the tfcilk.. At the aptiaktte end are wo large petateeer Mike' report'l eitidirie threie such duple* plants.