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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1958-06-12, Page 3Lazy Farmers Just to show you how enslaved we have become to this great Modern cult of the equation and the factor, the isotope and tee fail -out, the slide -rule and the orbit, notice this story in a na- tional publication about a labors - tory scientist in Norwich New York, who runs a 40 -acre farm with "intelligent laziness", 1 wonder they didn't call ' it an "agricultural establishment"; or al least a plantation or estate, but I suppose they need shorter words for headlines. Anyway, on this vast' 40 -acre fartn he supplements his labora- tory activity by a well -ordered Program of doing things the easy way, arriving methodically se a feature writer singles him out as a. phenomenon. Yet his con- tribution is simply that he is• (1) a laboratory scientist be the full up -stream surge of modern thrust and push; and (2) he operates a farm lazily.: My contention is abrupt, viz: that this lazy farmer did not receive this attention because he was a lazy farmer, but because he is a laboratory scientist, and in this day and age laboratory scientists are news, • whereas lazy farmers are not. This is a severe rebuke to our way of thinking, and goes to show. It somebody had wanted a really good story about a Lazy farmer, without emphasis on his status in the scientific world, it could have been provided long ago and it would have been a much better story. We can only conclude c ode that journalism t rnalism haa deserted certain principles, and is trying to be popular with the ascending physicists and chem- ists and mathematicians of the new era. A lazy farmer who is nothing else except a lazy farm- er wouldn't have a chance. Yet the fact that this man in Norwich, N,Y., is a scientist first and a lazy farmer afterwards has nothing to do with the matter. ' Comes to mind, for instance, Atnos Dolluff over at Purgatory eeilis, who never had his name in the paper until now. Amos always cut his firewood in eight• foot .lengths. Most cordwood comes four feet long, so Amos thus saves himself one complete operation per stick, This was in- telligent laziness just as good RS any in Norwich, After Amos got his wood home, instead of sawing it hi stove -length chunks as other people did, he permitted his in- telligent laziness to continue, and piled it in the shed so it pointed at the kitchen door His wife could step out in the shed and get wood, bringing it in the way anybody would carry a flagpole, end she would steer it into the side door of the range about the way a knight of olden yore ran hys lance into ye range on ye string to edify ye cheering throng, Then Mrs. Dolluft would rest the nether, or handle, end of the eight -foot stick on a chair, and as fast as her fuel was con- sumed she would move the stick and the chair nearer the stove. 'You could tell from the positive of the chair how near clone the beans were. But poor Amos was no laboratory researchist, was never interviewed for the press, end his numerous instances of in- tellectual disinclination to labor were of purely local fame. This man in. Norwich, N.Y., has a special hopper for his hogs, and gets his name in the paper because he fills it only once a week, proving that laziness pays off But nobody ever did a ,ti tory on Charlie Footer and 'his log chute, which was born,ot equal aversion to effort but which had no scholarship or degrees to embellish it. Charlie cut a hole in the kit - then sink shelf and built a, chute out through the wall to the pig - lien. His wife could thus lilt the lid on the shel', dump her kitchen ores in the shute, sluice everything down with some hot water and skimmed milk, and the pig down on the receiving end was fed Iazily in a manner acceptable to Charlie, who was intelligently and perennially tir- ed. It was just as good a rig as anybody ever had in Norwich. Indeed, Charlie's is a much better story, because the pig soon fathomed the source of his benefaction, and would clamber me in the chute to meet Mrs. Footer .more than halfway, She `would hoist the cover•, and be- fore she could contribute the pig would run his snout•up into the kitchen and speak at some length. about his approbation of the arrangement. Mrs, Footer would bang him on the proboscis with a skillet and he would re- treat.• People who attend certain social congresses at the Footer home, such as the Friday Circle or the Moon Valley Extension Association, would come away discussing the Footer pig chute with some merriment, but not enough so word got out to au. editor somewhere. Besides, Char- lie. was not' an astronomer, or anything like that. The tinge naturally came when cne of Charlie's pigs, just as he was big enough to get in but too big to get out, got stuck in the chute. The poor creature caIIed attention to his predicament at once, but was too well in for Mrs. Footer to help him by lar- raping him on the snout with a plate. For three hours she did her housework in this din, 1 suppose editors and laboratory scientists would not know what it rs like to have an unhappy pig wedged under your sink ehelf while you are ironing shirts and applying the frosting to a calve. I cannot believe that Nor- wich, N.Y,, understands such things. When Charlie came up Piam the field he dismantled the cons traption and recovered his pig, but the attendant porcine hulla- baloo was such that for three months Charlie said, "Hey?" whenever' anybody spoke to him. However, there still was no story about intelligent 'laziness on Charlie's farm. Farmers are the world's finest practitioners of research and ex- periment. They like to spare themselves. They frequently have o many labor-saving ideas they hesitate to let go, They •figure things out soonest, They are past masters at "rigging a scheme." Show them a job, and each will figure out 10 ways to do it easier. Laziness is a farm- er's best asset, a boon, an urge,'a drive. No other class; of people has ever practiced intelligent laziness with such success and profit. But farm laziness was never news until a laboratory. scientist tried it, and then the reporters came around and said "Oh" and "Ab', This is a great injustice. -by John' Gould in The Christian Science Monitor, 'We got rather tired of�p television' CROSSWORD PUZZLE l'I MS); 3, file 7. reader atcps 4 SII IIell 1. 8'014 dish 7 5:11(1* *rot. 11. 'heti VY - 6. r r oplu•ed 10 12. Porlee for 41r- Plant 4111l: no exl'lu- 7 'I antsy bons *h.* 1. near 34. Like 3r $knre 27 Pixie' 23.iilt'nlnr llgll 0I' 20. t'arrtkerlo 21,1 'r,,w'S note 22. 111*a1:,le 24. E1111118 10 22,Unxl. 4011 ole 26. Solver 28, Sunk), monot- onously 30. l'I,oler. 31. trill I)7' 32. too IeI,rar 3N. Rand 80. (8od 04 lobe 30. !tight knock- ing' 41. sin' 43.'ttaont 43, all nal ions 4a Age 46. Arll ole 47. Sm".II bodies ,f ore 49. Naar r60. 13e a -a ll i 1lrase S4.'Wit hers 05. 1''asltion - - 4 31ew ist itenew 3 3 9..711,111111g (eh.) :122. Rleyelepro- 711, Ulan's,* Puller 34, nefies 33. fluxing rings 34. Regions 73. Remarry r.Meir!*e 1U. Prefix mean- 36. Compile Ing three 37. :!lake happy 79. 1:014 el al, 411. 3tegnest 2). r 'oloperate 43. R'e ries nl inn - 3a. 0, tlwY tamer 44.18, not dele 23, *1 *one* qin 47. Ry p,rlo; 46, ]'early 27. \ unee',1 51. .113.s,gr 99 soak op 1?. Kp. art fete 8. 22 76 32 33 38 43 46 50 $54' 19 30 51 20 21 syJ 47 23 4 24 28 34' 39 40 35 52 55 7 29 31 44 25 21 36 48 53 49 Answer elsewhere on this page. SHE SINGS; HE WRITES -Veteran trouper Judy Garland gives it her all as she Winds up a song in Minneapolis during State- hood Day ceremonies. Secretary of Slate John Foster Dulles, far right, tippears to be missing Judy's song as he concentrates on notes for his speech. LFAIZN F1?ONT kAi2usseU.. Editor's Note: Tlie following article, written by the Farm Editor of the Christian Science Monitor, refers to conditions be- low the border. But I think that a good deal of it should provide food for thought to many of us Canadians as well. 0 * * Most Americans agree that since we all depend on farmers to produce the food. and fiber we need, we must somehow keep enough farmers in business to meet this need._ n * * This general recognition of the farmer's essential status has fos- tered wide belief in two theses which possibly merit acceptance but which, considering present economic pressures on the citi- zenry, seem to call for fresh scrutiny and evaluation. Much of the political campaigning on farm issues now building toward November congressional elec- tions centers around these two theses. * * * The first is: "Farmers are en- titled to their fair share of prof- its in the nation's economy." * * The second: "Because the fam- ily farm represents certain moral values which have contributed to America's greatness, it must. at whatever cost, preserved in its traditional entity." * * At the risk of sounding brutal, honesty demands a second recog- nition before the theses can be evaluated - the recognition that America is struggling not only with a surplus of certain basic crops, but: also with what some economists define as a surplus of farmers, The .technological fact today is, that fewer farmers than ever before can produce what Americans need, and still have HAPPY JOE - An 82 -year-old. widower, Josef von Suskovic of Milwaukee is a happy man after 52 years. He plans to go ti Sweden in June to marry Mrs. Anna Applequlst, a widiw of 70. Joe wonted to marry Anna in 1906• but her father said she was too young. enough left over to supply some world needs. * * This recognition, involving drastic changes in the agricultur- al structure, is hard to face, es- pecially for farmers who, be- cause of lack of capital or know- how, have been unable to keep up with the all-out mechanize - tion that has taken over Ameri- can farmlands with incredible speed. They need help: But what will help them most? 4' * Considering the first thesis: Just exactly what is agriculture's "fair share" of•the nation's prof - fits? '(Think of the imponder- ables involved- such points as:' Should everyone's share be the same? Or should personal effort and success be takin into ac- count? Who is to decide such fundamental questions?) 1f 500 farmers - or perhaps 100 - can today turn out as much as 1,000 could produce 30 years ago, should government subsidize the thousand just to perpetuate the way of life they are used to u * This leads into 1171 2nd thesis, concerning the family farm which today is generally defined as a farm where the family makes all management decisions and does most of the work. With all the mechanical help now available, some family farms have become big operations bear- ing little resemblance to yester- day's few acres worked by a man and a mule and a plow. Many others have remained too - small to prosper, and their plight does indeed cry out for aid. * 0 0 But many people are now ask- ing: To what extent should all citizens be taxed to keep un- successful farmers on the land simply because that is where they happen to be and because Americans feel sentimental • about a romanticized but some- what -out-of-date picture of "the family farm" as grandpa knew it? * * * ff We have yet to hear anyone question what would !lappet) to the moral values usually asso- ciated with the institution known as the family farm if that insti- tution could be preserved only ' by the federal dole. Would it be better for the farmer and the whole station .if government should confine its role to providing disaster insur- ance and to offering something •111ceindustry's unemployment iit- .surance for a designateci period to help struggling farmers find jobs in industry or adjust their operations to, more profitable methods? i y * It is not the purpose of this column to try to answer these big questions, nor to support or re- fute the thesis. It is meant only' to urge study .01 these crucial issues, whirh will to some extent be decided when Americans go to the• polls next fall, and vote into office men who do,erdently support'- 'or refute - these now familiar premises. Heart Operation On Television "Five of our cameramen back- ed out of this because they felt too squeamish," said Milton Rob- ertson, executive producer of Du Mont Television's Station. WABD, takingtime out from supervising New York City's first live telecast of a heart opera- tion. "In all, we had a 25 -man technical crew spend three weeks of intensive work, reading up on heart surgery, watching color films, and attending an actual operation," Robertson fussed abstractedly at his green surgical gown, sim•' filar to those enveloping his as- sistants and the ten -man surgical Learn which was mending the de- fective 'heart of Mabel Chin, a Chinese-American girl aged 3, at the New York University- Bellevue Medical Center. The TV screen before Robertson showed him - and an estimated 2.1 million New Yorkers - the deft hands of two surgeons as they worked with the precision of a corps de ballet en a pulsing, living human heart. One of the rubber -gloved hands pointed to the heart. The voice of the chief surgeon, Dr Jere W. Lord, explained: "Here is the problem. A short slender tube called the ductus arteriosus is connecting the aorta and the pulmonary artery, It should have closed at birth, It didn't." As Dr. Lord began to tie of/ the duct with surgical thread, Robertson said: "You know, 1: don't think the public would be able to stand watching a color telecast of this," The unspoken corollary bothering Robertson, of course was: Would the public be able to stand watching even a black -and -white telecast of a heart operation? "Although 250,000 Americans have had successful heart opera- tions," said a spokesman for the New York Heart Association, in explaining the association's spore- sorship of the television show, "another 300,000 wile need oper- ations are holding off because of fear and ignorance, We feel that a live telecast will show them how safe a heart operation is." The association's faith on this score had been considerably bolstered by the recent success of two other live telecasts in Detroit and Seattle, "We hope," The New York Journal -American's TV critic, Jack O'Brian, had bristled: on the day of the telecast, "that the showing of "live" heart opera- tions on television "is not a trend". Next day, however, critic O'Brian rewarded the Heart As- sociation's faith by changing his mind: "The performance . , , was astoundingly impressive, a vast and tender visual ad for the Heart Association's stubborn progress.' -From Newsweek. "i ane: I'vo always wanted to meet your bass!:" ISSUE 23 - 1958 LESSOi By Rev ft. 11. Warren, 6.A.. 6.0. A People Must' Choose Joshua 11:16-20,23; 24:14-18 Nlemor'y selection: Put away .. the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel. Joshua 24:23, The conquest of. Canaan took place quickly. God miraculous:y stopped the flow of the Jordan when the priests bearing the ark stepped into the waters. Joshua set up twelve stones in the bed of the Jordan and on its west- ward bank as memorials. Then he renewed the rite of circum- cision. The fortress of Jenne was taken in a manner which notably demonstrated the power of God. Then came a setback et Ai because of sin in the camp. Earnest prayer and punishment of the culprit brought God's favor again. A group of five kings led by the King of Jeru- salem met Joshua and were de- feated. Another group in the north were similarly overcome. Some mopping up operations i ollowed. One may incline to be sorry for the Amorites, But their ini- quity was full. Genesis 15:16. Wa therefore bow to the justice tit God. Later when the Israelites continued in their rebellion against God they were taken from this land by the Assyrians and Chaldeans. Nations, as the individualsw of • which hxc they are composed, are accountable to God. Joshua's farewell appeal was an urgent religious appeal, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." It is refreshing when a political and national leader un- ashamedly acknowledges God and calls upon his people to serve Him. Joshua had set the right :example and would con- tinue to do so. He spoke for his family, too. Happy are the par- ents who are serving the Lord. Happy are the parents who see their children following their example. In this day of wurld tension and lax morals we need sober, God-fearing leaders. We need men and women who will lift ups a righteous standard by precept and example. God bless our leaders at every level of gov- ernment. .l, KELLEY GREEN Lefty Gomez once got involved in an argument With Jim Dykes on how to pitch to a hitter with two men on base. After a heated discussion, they decided to get Mike Kelley, one of the most respected technicians in the game, to settle the argument. The pair found Kelley in bed. "Wake up, Mike," Gomez yelled, "we want to ask you a question." "Go away," Kelley replied. "Wait till tomorrow." Upsidedown to Prevent Peelung 7A .1 3 1 3'7 3 V 9 0 3 1tt 9 21 d 3 8 S 1 3 S A3 /81 NO3 NO 1 bD 3 11 Del S 30 O 5 011 3?/, 3SV d tri 3/A aa / 3 3 N a S. 7 V N 1 d S 3 V 0 0 N 3 2 1wn / 8 w Vd V Q' 3 d S 9 21 a'3Wa'd d90 7'VS�1?l'CS'Nn-ail TWO -LEGGED TANK -Stopping shotgun blasts at point-blank range a reinforced plastic suit of armor is tested at the pistol range of the Detroit police department. The suit, weighing 60 pounds, also stops pistol and machine gun slugs, protecting the front and sides of the wearer. The battery -powered lights are mounted on the head section. The department has ordered four suits.