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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1958-07-17, Page 5Old -Time Tools And Their Users The following quotation, of some importance, is from a fam- ily document dated 1700: ITEM: I give and bequeath to may son Joseph Gould one hand saw, one pannel ditto & one fine ditto, one quarter round, one paring chisel, one pannel plain, sashplain, groveing plough, one astikle, two oges, one joynter, fore plain & smoothing plain, one axe, one adds, one old mall, two rabbit plains to be delivered to him by my said executrix. . Apart from the orthographic ir- regularities of the homespun squire who drew the instrument, some explanations may be• neces- sary: .. A plough was a deep -cutting planelike tool, usually with in- terchangeable blades, and could be used for moldings or for tongue and groove work. The oges were augers - pod augers with crank handles, for boring e treenail holes where timbers were fastened together. The adds was an adze, and the axe was undoubtedly a broadax - two tools that went together for shaping and smoothing timbers. A good man with an adze could leave a surface you'd think was sandpapered and this makes' modern "imitations" of old hew- ing amusing. Today a butcher carpenter lays on with a shing- ling hatchet and roughs up a". board so the scars show, and it goes into high-priced buildings as a purported illusion of anti- quity. However, a real old crafts- man would be ashamed of such tool marks. True, you'll find ax and adze scars on barn timbers and some- times in a farmhouse where the work was home -done, but when a real old housewright or ship- wright hewed and adzed you'd think his work had been holy- stoned, The astikle has been a little hard to trace down. It was pre- sumably compasses, probably a large one with long arms for laying out the work and "scrib- ing" difficult joints. But it may have been smaller "dividers," or even a long wooden bar with ad- justable markers for sizing tim- bers. So, Son Joseph was left a fairly complete set of profes- sional carpenter's tools -a legacy of considerable value in those times, and perhaps as good as any in the colonies. their trade leaves a big ques- tion -mark as to why it wasn't conveyed in this instrument, and we don't know. A generation afterward, when our ancestor left the coast and came up .here on the hill• to whittle out a farm, the family frow turned up again in the ef- fects of young, now old, Joseph. His son brought his family . and belongings, teaming an oxcart through the forest, and chose a homesite by a brook just down the knoll from our present home. But the bequest is interesting because it doesn't mention the frow at all, and the frow was the most important tool our fam- ily owned during those early days. I have just looked in my desk dictionary here to see what it says for - frow, and it doesn't mention the word. Neither does it give "shake" - shake being what you made with a frow. I suppose the unabridged fills in, 'but here are two exciting words practically gone from the lan- guage, and in the time of the elder and younger Josephs the frow was the key to a certain prosperity they enjoyed. In those days boards were rip- ped out by manpower in sawpits, and there were few sawmills in the colonies. When it came to laying a roof, they got along without boards, or roofers, and Paid shakes on .lenthwise poles, .spaced just right. The shake was "rived" from a pine or cedar. bolt with the frow, 'which was .a special chisellike tool that you had, first, to own, and secondly had to know how to use. Shakes were a sort of shingle, and riv- ing them was a special profes- sion. The two Josephs were the best :along the whole coast. And while they worked as carpenters on any job they could find, they mostly made shakes and laid roofs, going great distances .sometimes to do a house or barn. The importance of the frow to The first few weeks were spent in clearing •ahome..acre, laying over the huge pines,`and they slept at night under the cart. A piece of sailcloth was lashed over the load, so it was rain -tight, and there was noth- ing to unload the possessions in- to until` they built a camp. And they didn't build a camp for themselves until they'd finished a pole -and -brush hovel for their oxen, cow, shoats and poultry. Their first Home had a dirt roof laid on bark over peeled poles, and they wintered in it with daily gratitude for the great good fortune that was theirs. The next season they went to work on a real cabin, walls to ,. be of the great three -and -four foot logs of the pines. Only by clever engineering with the oxen and long chains could they roll these giants up and into place, but the job was • done at last. Then came a chimney, made from brook rocks and daubed with greasy blue clay which dried hard in the sun, but went soft again every time it rained. It. came time to,' put on the roof. So there was a long foot journ- ey down the river trail. to the tidewater settlement, to borrow paw's frow. Back home, the young pioneer had his pine bolts sawn to length, and he began riving off his shakes. When he had enough good shakes he laid on his roof, and he had a tight cover that with- stood the rigorous seasons away along until 1800, when he hauled logs to a new waterpower saw- mill at Little River and was able to build a frame house, with roofers and shingles. He made another foot trip to return the frow after his cabin was done, and I think that's quite a story, from first to last. As to the will, my guess is that the frow belonged to young- er Joseph all the time, and it never was his father's to be- queath. -By John Gould in The Christian Science Monitor. What Reds Read Soviet readers are devouring the translated works of Ameri- ran authors with a surprising passion. An eight -volume edition of Jack London's writings have sold more, than 3 million copies; twelve works of Theodore Dret- ser have had, press runs of 75,- 000 5;000 copies each; Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleber- ry Finn" each ran to 450,000 copies. Russian demands for the books of contemporaries like. Ernest Hemingway, John Stein - beck, William "'Faulkner, and even Mickey Spillane continue to rise, In all, since the revolu- tion 40 years ago, the Soviets have appropriated 2,752 works (totalling some 77 million copies) by 218 U.S. novelists and play- wrights, rarely paying a dollar or a ruble in royalties( some ex- ceptions: Lillian Hellman and Howard Fast). Recently, Chicago lawyer Ad- lai Stevenson submitted his first legal brief in the pleadings of the Authors League of America vs. the U.S.S,R. to Russia's Am- bassador Mikhail Menshikov. Re- cognizing that Russia never sign- ed a world copyright treaty, Ste- venson asked that U.S. writers be paid on the same basis that Russia pays its own authors (U.S. publishers have ,paid the Reds). Then he left for Moscow to deal with the commissars. CROSSWORD PUZZLE ACROSS 01. Join. 1 t.Ikewise not 67. Stain 4. wild dog of ...-. rndta 9, Swear 12 Cretan mt. 13. vend money 14 niaenw 15, Chaff 17, Conics In an oven 18. Bovine 20, Dog. genus, 21. Dry 23. Exclamation 24 Little 27, Among 29 (7r. commune. 30 Charles Lomb 31 T-Typnthetical force 22 Tried 24, Cir. letter 22. Cony hone 37. Earth 39, Spread loosely 32, Moaning sound 41. Steamship tab.) 42, Oriental dwellings 43 Ordinary form of language 45. Of us 40 Belonging to an Egyptian race 43 Prevents .51, Scandinavian coin 52. Dressing for food , 54, Before 56, Cushion t. Pen point 2. Harem roost 3. Rank 4. Pulled 5 Prnnnim 6. Siberian river 7 Italian rein 8. Short tackets 33. Dutch meter 9. Seri 26. Soalced up 20. worthless leaving'3y, Sn rPn red a titreet )t. 10xleted. 10. Bosh - 40.$uttnd 19. Purposed 42. Payable 20. Make up 44. Scrutinize 21. Amid 40, Above 22, Passenger 46 Quilt for 23. Bowlers - • winding silk 21, Passenger. „ 47. Anglo-enlnn steamer Money 28. Praises 99. Particle 28.16. radian 49. Endeavor fiber plant 50. Perceive 29 (1r. province 03. Ouldo's lowest 32. 13egin note ( 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 '� 9 10.'11' 12 1314 15 i b .'$2 l7 - 18 .. . 21 22' V23. y '>'. 24 30 25 76 27, : ',, 28 - 29 33� ]4 35 36 - .W VAN 37 R38 39 •, 40 NX" 41 42.. OS 43 - 44 ...45rr,.•A fi 4 , ' . 48 : ' 49 ; 50 51'� 52 93 , {x" L: 54 55 56 .}„ 5'3 57 - Answer e.sewhere on thus page. A WEED BY ANY OTHER NAME -This hog pokes his nose through the fence for a sniff of eau de weed. Eyes closed in rapture, the porker enjoys the scent. ThL1'MMh9FBONT Among new categories added to national beef grades is one that provides dor overfat car- casses - Commercial Class 3. Homer J. Maybee, chief of livestock products division, Mar- keting Service, Canada Depart- ment of Agriculture, linked this extra category with preparation of beef cattle for exhibit and sale. Hundreds of beef steers are marketed each year in this man- ner, he said, starting with local 411 shows in Western Canada and continuing through to the Royal Winter Fair and similar shows. * • r Cattle sold at these exhibitions enter the regular trade channels. The meat is often marked with a special stamp to indicate it is "show beef" and usually brings a price premium at the whole- sale and retail levels: * • - * The carcasses are normally graded by a government grader and the official` grade mark ap- plied. Usually these show cattle have excellent conformation, and a high proportion of them make top grade -Choice or Red Brand. • • • Occasionally, though, carcasses are overfinished. They are too fat and west,' to be popular with, the retailer and his cus- tomer., Despite the top confor- mation and, the "show beef" la- bel, they still provide a low- grade product. • • * Now that the new category has been established, grades Choice, Good, Standard, Commercial 1, and Commercial 2 will not in- clude overfinished wasty car- casses, Mr. Maybee explained. The trade puts its own evalua- tion on the various grades and Commercial 3, or cattle expected to go into Commercial 3 after slaughter, are likely to be dis- counted. * • 8 The marketing expert warned producers of finished beef cattle against overstepping the mark on finish. He said producers of market show cattle should rea- lize that on the cutting block, conformation cannot compensate for excess fat. That extra layer of fat may downgrade the carcass from choice to Commercial 3. * * • Tuberculosis in Canadian cat- tle has been reduced to less than two-tenths of one per cent and will eventually be stamped out, Dr. A. E. Lewis,- associate chief veterinarian, Canada Depart- ment of Agriculture, told a Mich- igan State University conference on tuberculosis eradication June 17. First tuberculin tests were carried out in Canada about 1900 and incidence of the disease was recorded as high as 20 per cent in some areas, It has dropped to a low of 0.14 -the percentage of reactors uncovered during the last fiscal year. "Although we encounter many problems,' he said, "we are con- vinced that we will eventually eradicate the disease." * •- Dr. Lewis traced the history of Canada's fight against bovine tuberculosis to the first eradica- tion plan, adopted in 1911 and known as the Supervised Herd Plan, Under it, owners could have an annual herd test with- out charge. Reactors were re- moved from the herd without compensation. * * • The Restricted Area Plan started in 1923 and all Canada came under it in 1952, at which Hine the supervised herd plan was discontinued. In restricted areas, testing of all cattle is mandatory and re- actors must be slaughtered im- mediately. When cattle with the disease are re:7loved frnm a herd, the .owner must clean and disin- fect his premises. Then he re- ceives compensation from , the Federal government. Mystery Of The Elephant's Trunk One .of the most mysterious of all communications between ani- mals is trunk talk over the long- distance circuit. Like birds which respond to the orders of a flock leader, like the moth which sum- mons her mate from miles away, this is animal communications which man knows little about. Moth antennae catch a kind of radar signal, and perhaps the elephant trunk has another in- visible power. Members of 'a herd of Chad elephants mysteriously signal to one another across more than a hundred miles, perhaps much further. This Restricted Area plan pro- vides for the- controlled . move- ment of cattle into an area, pre- venting the iritrdduction of in- fected animals,' Dr. Lewis ex- plained. * - The only other policy followe'l on a national level involves the Accredited Herd Plan. Strictly voluntary, it is open only to own- ers with a minimum of 10 pure bred cattle of one breed, Its standards are high "since the plan is intended only fni bona fide breeders." • • * Full-time salaried veterinarians and practitioners are employed by the government to carry out periodical tests under both poli- cies. When reactors are found, own- er sales and purchases over the past two years are studied All herds from which reactor ani- mals originate and all animals sold are submitted to a special re -test. * * • All animals • undergoing tests are ear tagged, and reactors are identified with red tags in the left ear. Such tags have the word "reactor" on the upper side and such reactors are immediately ordered slaughtered. Dr. Lewis said that in dealing with the export of cattle to the United States every precaution is taken to ensure that only ani- mals free from tuberculosis are shipped. MUTUAL ADMIRATION --"To Noreen,( with love" seems to be the intent of Rib -Rik, as he smooches his 10 -year-old mistress, Noreen Borges. She had her trained horse entered in the Solana County Fair.', Oberjohann, with all his in- stinctive feeling for elephants and his daring and skill to travel with the herd while observing them, could never understand this long-distance communica- tion. Lifting their trunks high to trumpet with sound signals, or erecting them and revolving the nozzleinall directions to catch an odor, is more understandable to us but it does not explain the "telepathy" at all. The antenna gives insects the image of their world by touch, smell, and communication... . The elephant's trunk renders services similar to those of the antenna by creating an image of the world for its owner through touch, smell, and also by main- taining herd communication. Also like the antenna, it is basic equipment around which is built a certain kind of body to live under elephant conditions, but with more uses than the anten- na.... When the animal is on the go the trunk moves restlessly back and forth. While grazing, mem- bers of a herd may become far separated. Then up goes the trunk, erect tip revolving, the signal is caught, and all the ele- phants head straight for water, making fifty miles in a night. As an elephant steps along at its usual rate of about six miles per hour, the trunk is repeatedly erected to check direction. Now it searches bushes and ground for the scent of an elephant which has preceded it, much as a dog follows a trail; most of the time it sways like a great pendui;im, balancing the body, givingss ifsg and pace to six tons of anea't, Nature dfd ,not achieve such tremendoii. •'eight in an animal without arranging for it to move easily... Hind legs push the animal for- ward, although they must also receive weight from each fore- leg momentarily when the ele- phant takes a step. Almost half of the weight of an elephant is in front of the forelegs, so that with comparatively little • effort the weight seesaws on the fore- legs when it moves. The pendulum of a heavy trunk helps greatly in this move- ment. When held out horizont- ally for a moment its leverage helps the elephant to step on the accelerator and run in an emergency. Most of the time the rhythmic swaying of -the trunk makes it walk. - From "The River of Life," by Rutherford Platt. Q. How can 1 renew jar lids? A. Place them in a vessel and cover with buttermilk. Leave them for a day or two, and they will appear practically new. UNDNY SOON LESSON By Inev. R. Barclay Warren B.A., 13.1) Social Justice and the Gospel Matthew 5:17-20, 4648; 23•23-26. Memory Selection: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12. Social justice is a broad term including various things whirls may be discussed in the lessons ahead. This lesson is an introduc- tion to the general theme. The Sermon on the Mount has been called the keynote address of the kingdom. Jesus had not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. He fulfilled it by His example. No one before had com- pletely kept the law. He gave it a perfect interpretation by His life as well as by His teaching, Consider the seventh command- ment. Jesus said, "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery': but I- say unto you, That whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her comm't- teth adultery with her already in his heart." The keep'ng of the law is more than an outward conformity to the letter. It is an attitude of soul. Jesus presented a hist stan- dard to His 'disciples. He said, "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heav- en is perfect," At first glance this seems impossible, What does Jesus mean? With our scant knowledge and imperfect reas- oning ability our judgments are often imperfect. Hence our words and acts will also fall far short of perfection. What ,ieeus ca'ls for is a perfection of love, "Love your enemies," But even this :s impossible for the natural heart Only when we are bcrn main by the Spirit of God can we love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and our neighbour as ourselves. The memory selection is the golden rule which is a practical application of the law of love. It does not mean that we shall ;always please others, "Let every one of us please his neighbour .':for his good to edification." Bo- -shams. 15:2. To help a robber con- ;gear his crime is not practising 'Abe golden rule. We must have his good in mind. Some have said ater they were caught "I was hoping I would be caught.'t Con- science was riot completely sear- ed. We must work for man's high- est and ultimate good in the spirit of love. Obey the traffic signs - they are placed there for YOUR SAFETY. Upsidedown to Prevent Pees mg ©©0 DEMO D00 ©0© MODE ®OD ®00®00 00®00© X00 mum norm ESU =[70E L©® MO© EOM GAO ONWOMO® UM MOH MOO 00..1 MEMO CO 01100 MOM ! 14 CI0 ©BUOUD 0©0©0U© ©0M ONE Ha HAND -RAISED -After dogs killed a female opposum near the home of Dr, S A. Lang, investigation showed she was carrying a litter'of six tiny young'uns in 'her" kangaroo -like pouch. The Langs rescued them and, being a medical family, saved all six. They were about an inch and a half long and "very ugly". Fed baby formula through an eyedropper, as Mary Ruth Lang is doing above, they are now thriving. When they are large enough, the Langs will dohats them to a zoo.