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The Seaforth News, 1958-12-04, Page 3Horse Chestnuts Aiid Debt Thee was always puzzlement over the ditty: "Here we go gathering nuts in May ." for our nuts came in the fall of the year. After the first frosts had set the summer's progress back, we'd go gather- ing nuts in all directions. Some. times We'd find some, and some- times we'd also find a fringed gentian. Not in May, but may- be down under, We had several kinds of nuts to gather in these parts, but I think. Maine has largely gone out of that kind of nut business since: I do not know, actually, where to look for a pigtoe now; but they used to be fairly fre- quent. Somebody said they were some kind of hickory, but we caned them pigtoes or some- times shagbarks, and hickory wasn't a word we used. I think nuts, in general, are an item I associatewith fiasco and de- bacle, for it does seem that the subject ran to much less merrie ment than the gay ditty sug- gests. With horse chestnuts, for in- stance, I think of the Rine I cleaned out a plate glass win - do/ and first went in debt. We didn't eat horse chestnuts, of course, but they are so smooth and pretty we had to find some use for them, like carrying them in our pockets. . There were many things in those days which fulfilled a magnificent utility by just going around in boys' pockets. There was one day 'that Irv- ing Bronte reached in his pock- et, in school, to procure his penny for the War Saving Stamp program, and as he with- drew it brought forth, inadver- tently, a great company, or raft, of horse chestunts, which roll- ed and thumped about on the schoolroom floor with great vivacity. The teacher told him to be more careful, but we knew Irving had been extra careful to set that one up, and it had come off just about as he had said it would. I had a David slingshot in those times, and could have tak- en a Goliath if one had appear- ed. I could stand on aur lawn and toss a horse chestnut over the roof and steeple of the Bap- tist Meeting House, which was quite somb fling. There are a number of horse chestnut trees growing over In that section now, about the right size, and I imagine I planted them all. So I showed an aunt of mine bow I could fling in the David manner, and my horse chestnut slipped on the back cast and hit the big window in the dining TO SAVE YOUR LIFE l'-1 +elf *+ Wash wound et once with plenty of soap and water, See a doctor immediately for antirabies shot. if possible eat capture animal '% = alive so that F; it may be observed. ' Future treatment `',: may depend on this. ie 'WHAT TO DO -Rabies, one of he most dreaded of diseases, lis stilt a serious problem in many countries, reports WHO, the World Health .Organization. ISketchcs above illustrate steps 'it recomt'ends in the event of a bite by f, possibly rabid animal. room. 'I had failed to go into orbit, and the glass jingled and tinkled something wild, I stared off along the intended trajec- tory, making believe I was go- ing over thechurch, but it was no use. The dining room was filled with powdered glass, with one chestnut looking innocent in the corner, and I knew a. bill would be rendered. My .aunt must have felt sbme twinge' of complicity, for she had at least consented to watch, and she peeled off two dollars to help defray the expense, and protest- ed to all that it had been wholly an accident, We had butternuts, and by holding an old flatiron > between the knees and hammering faith- fully with a carpenter's hammer we could clean out over a week- end enough meat for one batch of fudge. There is a recollection of long hours of whacking to get a taste, and the fun of gath- ering a bagful of butternuts •is lost in the business of opening them and hunting through the prevailing shell for something to eat. My favorite nut, I think, was the hazelnut, which came off a bush rather than a tree. I don't remember any untoward details concerning hazelnuts, and I guess they were all right. Our pasture lane used to be lined with them, but they are all gone. There was some kind of a bug appeared orie year, boring into the Busks, and shortly we had no more. The big problem with beecb- nuts was to find them. These little triangular tidbits grow on the huge old beech trres, and drop with the first sharp frost. Once they drop the squirrels and jays go after them, and they can search through the fallen leaves faster than we can. In all the years I went for beech- nuts I never had more than a double handful at one time, ex- cept the year we spread out the blankets and sheets. This was a good idea as far as nuts went, but it lacked certain merits just the same -as the womenfolks pointed out when they were washing everything. We spread blankets and 'sheets all around under a couple of big old beech trees the night of the first cracking frost. There was a fine moon, and we expected to have tons of nuts. The frost opened the burrs all right, and the tiny nuts must have rattled down all night long. But an extensive gathering of deer came along in the predawn pe- riod and executed a cotillion on our bedding. You never saw such a mess. Here and there a few nuts had been spared, but mostly the labor had not been , repaid. We had about two dou- ble handfuls. So we carried the blankets and sheets back to the house, and learned that our ex- periment was unapproved by the laundress, who thought our brilliant idea stupid. It's how you look at it, The pigtoe nuts got us into trouble, too. Timmie Brackett said, one day, "I know where there's a pigtoe tree!" So be led us through the woods, away over back, and up behind a barn, where we found pigtoe nuts galore. •We never had any better luck. Then a man step- ped out and said he was a de- puty sheriff, and we were all arrested. 1t wasn't as bad as it sounds, for we picked up our nuts and ran, and made a fine escapeand never went back. It seemed some boys unknown to us had been plaguing this farm- er, and he didn't like it. When we showed up, our first foray into that neighborhood, we were mistaken for the culprits. Tim- mie, of course, was aware of this, and told us later. For a few days we wondered when we'd get picked up, but then nothing happened. ' Seems as if I remember those few days more than I do the nuts. -By John Gould In The Christian Science Monitor. CROSSWORD PUZZLE A rr4OSS 1. Cereal grnse 4. Ile under 7. (lRation ltlt otante 1" '.trrnnaed 1n roldv 14.11reaset) 17. novel 10. Repent. 18 in"erintive endl aft 111 llrrseeu rings 20 !•cont 21. A lifetime 22. Sort of glove 29 Untruths 24. n•hat roan 25 ' ^mod eon. Phots 2d Ind at the nclerwsrld 27 1:^teens 19 W b'rl w frames 32. Inquire 32 Roasting staice 34. Behold 35. ventral part 37. Sim'ans 21 Seal I11 ohureh 311. Old cloth 40. Athena. 41. Gt: tern 42. i?rlent:al 44 Mr. Clans 46. Pennies 47. Pub'lahed work 49. I7nglish tatters 69, Sp. title 67, Shout DOWN is Harvest 9 ()wetly EL Mother pig submissive 33. Dave zest to 10, Bristles 25. Crinkled 11. 1ta512 Places fabric 13. Insect 35. Penile desert 17. A taint; rat regions 1,gypt Mb.) 57, Friend (1°S) I goddess 19, ether :13. Piind fear `- •2 Affirmed 21. Sunken louse 3 Annoy 22, t h:u•aeterIstie 40. Sweeten') 4. A baseball 23. Citroen 41. Flying t•hnmp10n 25. !erudite mammal 5 Pronoun 20. Platfor, 1 43 Particle 9= 1)eerees 23. Homier:, 44. Seek -un 7. Composition lin 1104 "frense In verse -. "0 nunllfie 1 45 Seine 9 Atnlnsllhere vel el 45. Keynote _2_1142_ 3 6 rN,'7 I2 13 '4:4 14 15 19 16 2 17 9 10 ( 20 24 27 23 6 12 3 3. 31 34 35 39 42 46 49 41 43 47' 4e 44 45 eek 51 , Iasi Answer elsewhere on tits page CAMERA CONTEST - Each intent on, trying to "upstage" the other and steal the scene, Jean -Hagen and Shaggy, the mop - pawed dog, were so intent on the battle that they both got out of focus. Note that Shaggy is even stepping on Jean's foot, It happened while shooting Walt Disney's "The Shaggy Dog;' a spoof on shaggy dog stories, in Hollywood. TIIIIARM FRONT Increasing the size of the herd but inability to afford buying more land for pasture and feed growing, is a problem facing many dairy farmers today. * 4 4 Gerard Clouatre, who owns a 75 -acre dairy farm near Sabre- voix, Quo„ some 35 miles south- east of Montreal, had this proo- lem until he discovered it was possible to carry a herd almost twice as large on the same acre- ege - without too much trouble and expense. How he did it 11 described by Simonne Daig- neault in the current issue of C -I -L Oval. u z* Miss Daigneault writes that three years ago Mr. Clouatre maintained 30 head of cattle on his farm, 65 acres of which were under cultivation. He wanted 50 head without further investment in land so he sought advice of the Montreal soils laboratory of Canadian Industries Limited. * * * As a result of laboratory soil tests Mr. CIouatre discovered that different parts of his farm had different soil conditiuns. The pasture near his barn, for ex- ample, was poor in lime, phos- phorous and potassium lie cor- reeted this deficiency by apply- ing, in the fall, four tons of limestone per acre and a good application of manure to improve the organic matter content. The next spring he added a 2-16-6 mixture of fertilizer at the rata of 400 pounds an acre. M * 4 In fields 5 and 3, previously sown to hay and pasture, both ladino and timothy were on the verge of dying out from lack of phosphate and potash. A fall application of 0-20-20 at the rate of 240 pounds an acre pepped them up promptly. 4 0 4 Soil analysis also revealed that two other plots of land, sn hay and pasture, had also run low in lime, phosphorous and potassium and had not been *ecently manured. This called for a spring application of 5-10- 13 at 350 per acre following en application of lime at the rate of 21/2 tons an acre during the pre- ceeding fall. Another plot which suffered a boron as well e3 phosphorous and potash defit.f- ency was treated this fall with an application of a 2-10-20 ferti- lizer augmented by two per cent of borax. This scientific approach to Mr. Clouatre's problem is beginning to pay off, His oat crop yielded him 70 bushels to the erre. lie took off 00 tons of hay from the revived land, It now take3 less than one acre of improved pasture to carry one cow. He Las already added to his heed Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking LJ121E1E1 X00 111' wJ ©�®UD gig ©r If®: DUD 2k • IIIDITh' X41 E1 7 4 ,, ©n lIUl4..., ©©II i I' -U X4 I`ILA&©®®®-"ESEIEF' U©o®U©o '4191W MINN Orminufironau ' ©ail Luau c ,ctica ' :: EMU and is so confident his fhrm can easily sustain 50 head, he has begun to enlarge his barn to en- able him to house the increased herd. All this with no increase in acreage. - Device Defrosts Coffee Crop If you had visited Brazil this past summer and toured the State of Parana you would, if you had gone into the coffee - growing area, have witnessed a strange phenomena. In some sections, the landscape would have been covered by a dense fog, not unlike that experienced in London. This fog, the natives would tell you, was artificially produced and protected the cof- fee crop from freezing. If you were curious, you would have found that this fog was manufactured by a tanklike contraption, standing about four feet high and weighing some 500 pounds. It would be in use on many of the plantations; for it was winter, and the days and nights were chilly, as they are in California in December. Thie fog -making machine was designed by the Besier Corpora- tion, the world's largest manu- facturer of smokescreen equip- ment. It came into being be- cause Brazil suffered two dis- astrous coffee crop losses -274 per cent in 1953 and about 40 per cent in 1955. As coffee com- prises about 70 per cent of the country's exports, the situation was indeed serious. How did this situation come about? Well, the coffee growers, relying on the abundance of rich land their country affords, had failed to fertilize the soil of their immense plantations in the coastal area, where a warm, equable climate prevails. Thus when the land was "worked out," they had to move back -- into the semijungle region near the foot of the Andes. Here the temperature drops considerably in winter - especially at night. And frostlike weather Is often the rule. Meanwhile, the engineers had been experimenting, trying to devise a machine to protect crops against frost in the United States; a project under- taken because it was found that the firm's business always dropped in the years when heavy frosts were suffered. The experiments were a failure, and the project was abandoned. But a government agency in Brazil, hearing about the experi- ments, wrote to the Basler peo- ple for information; and al- though it was explained that no progress had been made, the Brazilian Government neverthe- less sent a commission to this country to confer with the Res- ler engineers on the project. Several days of conferences followed. At first, no progress was made. Then one day, in the midst of a discussion, a Besier engineer, glancing out the win- dow and noting the heavy fog that prevailed, had a happy in- spiration. "You know," he said, "when we have fog, it gets chil- ly, but never colt: and crops never freeze.:' It was an ideal That evening, Timothy Colvin, president of Besier, accompanied by mem- bels of his engineering staff, and the Brazilian commission, drove to the top of the Berkeley hills and observed the fog shrouded valley below; noted how the electric lights seemed to flicker in t13e white mist; a prenomena caused by radiant heat waves emitted from the ground and contained in the fog, writes Karry M. Nelson in The Chris- tian Science Monitor. From this it was deduced that the fog protected the ground - kept it from freezing; and that this would hold true in the cof- fee growing area in Brazil, which has a climate similar to that of California, "What we need is a fog -mak. ing machine," said Mr. Colvin. The Brazilians agreed. Buildingsuch a machine was comparatively simple a tank like structure, containing a gaso- line engine, a pump, centrifugal blower, and a steam generator that would evaporate a com- bination of oil and water, mak- ing a dense fog; which, as Mr. Colvin explained, "was heavy enough to cling close to, the ground and absorb the radiant heat of the earth and thereby form a warm, white blanket around each plant." A mockup up of this machine was shown to commission mem- bers before they returned to Brazil. Hearing of the commission's success, a group of independent Brazilian coffee growers ordered 50 of the machines from Besier. Jungle Drums Call Father In Cape Town, South Africa, a young Xhosa native, critically ill in hospital after an operation, cried for his father. Telegrams were sent to the police in the remote Transkei territory to trace the boy's father but they were unsucessful. Then someone in Umtata had a brainwave, summoned an old Xhosa deputy chief, and sug- gested that the bush telegraph - the African drums - be tried. For seven hours non-stop a mes- sage was tapped out before a weary Xhosa limned into the town to find nut what they want- ed with him. The message had been relayed for more than sixty miles to reach him in a remote mount- ain village. He was offered an immediate journey to Cape Town by air but refused, "The witchdoctor warned me that if I fly a bird I will lose my wives and my farm and cat- tle," the Xhosa said. He left that night for Cape Town by train and arrived in time to learn that his son had rallied and would live. ONDAY Sa1001 SS 11 By Key IL 13. Warren, 8,13., B 1) Teaching by Parables Mark 4: 1-12 Memory Selection: Re yt doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your 0W11 selves. James 1 22. Jesus was the greatest Teachei of all time. Be knew how to capture and hold the interest of his listeners and put His mos, sage across so that it would be readily remembered. "Without a parable spake he not unto them." Matthew 13: 34. Even those who were unwilling to do what Jesus taught would re.. member the story. In time some of them would grasp its spiritual meaning and became disciples. The parable of the Sower di- vided hearers into four classes, The wayside hearer hears the word but it makes no tasting impression on him. It does not really penetrate his hard heart. The hearer represented by the rocky gound hearer gives early promise of fruit but the roots do not go down far. Hence he withers in the time of persecu- tion. Another, likened unto the thorny ground, is overcome by the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things entering 11, and choking the word. But there are the > hearers likened unto good ground who bring forth a harvest, some thirtyfold, some sixty and same an hundred. How important are the words the parable; "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." An in- temperate English innkeeper went to a church to hear some special singing, but determined that he would not listen to a word of the sermon. After the singing he put his forefingers in both ears, but once removed one of them to brush a fly from his face. Just then the minister called out, "Ile that hath ears to hear, let him hear." The words powerfully impressed the innkeeper. He listened to the sermon, was converted. and lived a godly life for eighteen years, until his death. Fur many years he went, in all kinds of weather, to this church. which , was six miles away. We live in a land of an open Bible. We have ample oppor- tunity to hear the Word of God. The tragedy is that so many close their hearts to the heeding of God's Word. TAXES THE IMAGINATION - "Mickey", the circus elephant, trudged up these stairs In the town hall of Augsburg, West Germany, to deliver a trunkful of amusement tax from circus admissions. That's what the man said who took this picture. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? - Something is wrong about the beauty o+ this autumn scene on a •a,m and it's sot Virginia Daffern. Before you read further, see it you can spat it .. , Give up? That pumpkin Virginia is hoici ng is mo.! 1 of plastic.