The Seaforth News, 1956-09-06, Page 7te
"A mast shows how to save a
great valley development pro-
ject from erosion."
Sounds like one of the blurbs
we get from south of the Bor-
der or even -occasionally -froth
right stere in Canada.
However, as this dispatch in
The Christian Science Monitor
by Saville R. Davis comes from
the Damodar Valley In far-off
Delia it shows that Kipling was
maybe wrong. East and West
can meet -trying to repair mu-
tual foolishness.
Froin up here on the early
slopes of the Damodar Valley
you can look out with the mind's
eye over one of the greatest
prides of the new India -a uni-
lied valley development of dams,
power plants, industries, and
vast spreading plains with con-
trolled irrigation where some of
the worst floods in history raged
before.
From this point of vantage
you can see something else, too.
Unless something drastic and
large scale is done, this whole
proud assemblage of the works
of men will have its usefulness
wiped out in a few generations.
The dams would be as impotent
as if some violent flood achieved
the impossible and knocked
them down. In 50 years this pro-
cess of reversal would begin to
pinch; in 100 years the millions
of people blessed with irriga-
tion water in the lower valley
would see it begin to thin out.
* *
Two or three generations later
the old extremes of drought and
destructive flood would rule
again -unless something really
big is done.
The reason is to be seen on
all sides of us up here in the
hills where the waters originate.
While men are still pouring
concrete downstream, rearing
factories, and spreading the nets
of irrigation canals, other then
up here are unwittingly but sys-
tematically destroying the cover
that holds down the. soil. Great
masses of silt and dirt which
ought to be nourishing forests
and crops are being torn off the
top of the earth by the torren-
tial monsoon rains each year, and
are pouring clown the streams
to fill the new reservoirs. Once
Tull they are useless.
"This is some of the worst soil
erosion I have ever seen," said
a veteran soil conservation ex-
pert who has seen plenty.
That statement ends the Bret
chapter of this story: theanalysisof the problem. '
The second is more difficult to
relate. It is the account of how
a great country like India which
is becoming a great modern na-
tion copes with a huge problem
like this, in spite of its inex-
perience.
India may not fully under-
stand the pr'obleni or know in
every detail what to do. But it
took two steps which inevitably
led toward a solution. First it
set up a separate valley author-
ity called the Damodar Valley
Corporation - or .locally the
DVC. It is reasonably free oe
government bureaucracy and is
run by men who are topnotch
administrators. The se m en
brought together a team of tech-
nicians who know the primary
job of building dams and power
systems and irrigating land.
Then with remarkable fere-
sight in the very beginning it
get up a soil conservation divi-
iion within the DVC. It organized
this unit to conduct a coordinated
effort by competent soil .scien-
tists, agronomists, biologists, for-
esters, and engineers, It is this
second step that is doing the
trick because they invited to
India an expert to see what was
right and what was wrong.
*
This ends the second chapter,
which is a tribute to good orga-
nization. Turn good men loose on
a problem and they will, either
find a solution or find someone
who can lead them to it,
The third chapter is a very
human story.
Wilson Hull is a pleasant,
friendly, soft-spoken man from
Mississippi. He is also a tribute
to the human race.
It would embarrass Mr. Hull
greatly to dress him up in ad-
jectives until he looked like a
plumed knight galloping to the
rescue on a white horse. He
knows that India brought • him
here, that he is surrounded with
excellent and devoted conserva-
tionists,and that whatever the
merit of his recommendations, it
is his Indian -colleagues who al-
ready have caught the idea, are
pushing ahead with it, and will
be the ones to carry it out. He
insists, properly, on the fullest
credit to them.
Nevertheless they are entitled
to their say, too. And it was one
of his Indian opposite numbers
who told me when Mr, Hull was
not around, "Mr. Hull' found us
going at the problem in the
wrong direction. He turned us
around and started us in the
right way."
4. * *
Mr. Hull will just have to
look the other way while we
conclude there is something epic
about this. He may be just a good
conservationist. But it just so
happens that atoneof the key
points where the renaissance of
Asia is beginning to move, he
appeared on the scene and knew
how to say, "Not that way; over
here!" And so a turning point
was passed, It doesn't fall to
many men to have this kind of
opportunity.
The final chapter is what Mr.
Hull and his associates planned
and did, and in many respects it
is the most absorbing of all be-
cause it is absolutely simple in
design and almost impossibly
complex to execute. But, once
begun, it has the capacity to
multiply itself and roll up a mas-
sive solution to so big and baf-
fling a lroblem,
Mr. Hull looked at what was
being done by a small band of
zealous men with limited budget
on the limited acreage of land
which DVC owned or could ac-
quire. He said this wouldn't be-
gin to touch the problem.
"You will have to enlist the
entire mass of men who are tm-
wittingly destroying the soil in
the drive to save it." These were
the farmers, all of them, and
their herds of cattle.
Easily said -if you know how
-and almost impossible to exe-
cute. Mr. Hull himself had never
seen anything like this before.
* * *
Countless herds of cattle
(which are considered sacred 'in
India of course) and goats and
sheep are• allowed by custom and
ancient law to range freely over
the great upland stretches of al-
leged forest and alleged grass-
land.
The owners of the cattle and
goats do not own the land on
which they graze, so no farmer
CROSSWORD
PUZZLE
A11 ROSS
1. Walks
6, Witty person
D Headpiece
12. Scent
12. Arabian
garment
14 lVlnclniill sail
15 :Wormer
Russian
leader
16. 'Lore than
two
13. Animal .food
29Po t fort it
21. Find of
,.Neese
22, Pronoun
oRoman dale
26 n leot,dfied
pat ticl a
27. Worry
29. Required
81Rounded out
85 Positive
electric poles
27 Negative lot
82 Stalk
41, Rad halm
42, Margin
48, Slang of a
bort
45 dealing
devise
47 Rose ]nater
49. Pull -like
birds
62, Point in
tennis
$8. Sta.mpinm
form
34, Bar of rnate,l
W
W SClear profit.
it. Full ofroetxa
7. Ur, Lincoln
5, Donated
9. Was
interested
10. Cognizant
11. Stones
17.5a
DOWN 19, Specter
1. Chum 21. Tv lout'
2. Land measure n °receptacle
. Fish eggs.
8. Restrain 24. Most
infrequent
27, p'owl
22. Distress call
20, 1'riend of
Pythias
4, Novel by
Rousseau
u
n. Rational
6, ],sundry
machine
12
12.
32. Expertetiee
33. Rorse
26, Polo,.
86 Ica cream
freezer part
88 Atan'n a,'elt
enemy
59, Vastige
40,3 -fermi
42. Oecurence
44. Motion of
l based:
46, American
general
48. 'rifle
50. Negative
prefix
01. Pen
3 4i 5
;6 7
a
9
c /4
•i
/7
/0
I/
/d
23 2
23 24
20
5
29
29
32
33
4
37
39
4.0
z
43
41
4
44
49
•
Answer elsewhere on dile page
NO MERMAID CATCHER, but actually a delicate scientific instrument used in oil and gas
exploration, this weird -looking device, an underwater gravity meter, has nevertheless mana-
ged to come up with a shapely bathing beauty.- These pictures were taken on Lake Erie,
where Rector Sxploration Co. of Toronto is taking readings of the gravitational pull of the)
lake bed. The work is being done for Imperial Oil, as part of its exploration of the lake
bottom. A survey crew member (left) guides the gravity meter as it is lowered to the lake
bottom for a reading. Edith Parker (right) of Erieau, Ont„ proves that the device can be a
handy resting place between swims.
is responsible for the land which
his animals are denuding. The
animals simply eat off the gras-
ses that would bind the soil, and
they eat the seedling trees which
alone could keep the forests go-
ing. This is one cause of the
terrifying erosion.
Then as for cropland. Apart
from paddies where water con-
trol is automatically required,
the upland farms are fraction-
alized and dispersed, as genera-
tion after generation divides its
land among its children, to the
point where efficiency becomes
a fraction too; and then they
are cultivated in straight plow
lines up and down the slope of
the land, so as to encourage the
maximum of quick runoff and
erosion, which in a monsoon
country is something extra ter-
rible to see, On a typical slope
which I inspected, a solid band
of gullies on both sides were
greedily eating into the central
land at the rate ,of two feet per
year.
What could be done?
Frons the beginning Mr; Hull
knew that nothing could be
done without the farmers them-
selves. He didn't have to be told
that an earlier effort in which
the DVC itself did the work in
a demonstration area with big
machines made no impression
on the farmers. Mr, Hull knows
farmers are pretty much the
same theworld over. They are
not knidled to repeat things
done for them, in which they
do not participate, to which
they did not contribute or com-
mit their thought, time, labor,
desire and pride.
He also knew that nothing
could be done by sitting in an
office, which is- Asia's great
shortcoming, and either direct-
ing others or making plans on
paper.
In the solid tradition of good
farm extension work, he and
his colleagues went to ' a vil-
lage which had asked for help,
and there began one of those
tactful, patient persuasive, slow,
and persistent efforts to induce
farmers to want to help. them-
selves.
* * *
So•an upland field of 17 acres
was given the full treatment.
There were 10 registered own-
ers and 24 more who shared
with them. All their holdings
were consolidated and laid out
on an en'tir'ely new conserva-
tion pattern - in contour
curves, with safe water dsposal
at terrace ends into grassed
meadow areas on both sides et
the long slope. Gully heads
were sloped and sodded and
runoff chutes were provided
where necessary.
I was shown the maps from
which they worked and could
only stare at then], The tiny
original plots were so dispersed
and subdivided that one of
them might' be a three -foot -
wide strip running up and down
the slope. Later I saw such a
strip and straddled it with my
two feet. How these lines - so
close they could scarcely be
drawn on the chart - were
turned into new contoured, re-
assembeld holdings with a com-
mon access road down the mid-
dle on land given by the farm-
ers and a safety ,strip on each
side, so that each :farmer was
satisfied with his new land, was
a pure "democratic 'revolution.
* * *
The first four contour terraces
were built by the conservation
team to show how. The farmers
built the other 13 planned for
the slope, using their bullocks
with simple indigenous wooden
plays, and board scrapers called
kahars (something like a drag-
pan), dressing them by hand.
They were just as good terraces,
Wel Mr. Hull, as the experts had
built
Fertilizer from DVC for the
first trial year. Improved seed
on a 50-50 basis.
Then began the familiar -
to Mr. Hull and his co-workers
- and totally unfamiliar - to
the farmers - round of good
farming, Rotation of crops in-
cluding legumes and cereals.
Perennial forage grasses on the
steeper land, to be cut but not
grazed. -
* * *
The first job was done and
proved. Now the farmers could
grow a crop every years on their
land, instead of using it only
two years out of five, which was
as much as the poor soil had
previously followed, -
Next the team tackled an
even more remarkable job of
reorganizing and persuading in
another area. Some 37 acres
with 02 original owners and 238
shares were put through the
same process, a task of such
intricacy that they themselves
called it a miracle. But it work-
ed, and next year both areas
were on their own, with less
DVC support, and all going well,
This year there are some 1,000
acres in 20 villages being im-
proved in the same way. The
process slowly begins to pick up
speed.
How They 'Eat'
On The Stage
Miss Dorothy Tutin not long
ago described her plight, one
evening in I am a Camera, when
the play required her to make
and drink a 'prairie oyster' in
full view of the audience and
each egg as she broke it proved
to be bad. There was 110 oppor-
tunity to leave the stage to pro-
cure something better, so the
only thing for a conscientious
actress to do was - to pull herself
together and drink the horrid
concoction. Miss Tutin's experi-
ence, though perhaps an extreme
case, is not essentially different
from the kind of thing with
which actors up and down the
land have to put up nightly.
Stage food, alas for illusion,
is no more like real food than
the people in plays are, as a rule,
like people in real life. It is
therefore a callous, if not actual-
ly malevolent, dramatist who
calls upon his actors to eat on
the stage. For one thing this im-
poses certain strain on their
technique. The novice, we sus
pect, will have considerable dif-
ficulty in uttering such a cry as
'Poison'!' in the proper tone of
mingled surprise, dismay and in-
dignation when his mouth is full;
and although the old hand will
not fall into so obvious a trap
if he is to avoid it he will need
to work out beforehand pretty
precisely at what points to take
a bite. He is also likely to have
strong views on what food goes
down most easily, and this will
seldom be found to coincide with
what the character he plays is
supposed to be eating.
A square meal on the stage
has a way of turning out to be
apple. Slices of apple, cut as late
as possible to avoid browning,
serve very well for chicken or
any other white meat, but some-
times slices of bread are used
instead. Fortunate actors . may
be given a choice. Thus the
prop' lest for the supper scene
in The Sleeping Prince calls for
'two portions of chicken (one
apple, one bread)', from which
it might be inferred that one of
the playerswas either more con-
ventional than the other or else
more fearful of putting on
weight. Red meat is not to be
counterfeited so ingeniously, and
ltlneheon meat must therefore be
used for minute steaks and other
such imaginary titbits.
So far. it may be objected,
there .is little of that vocational
hardship to which Miss . Tutin's
ordeal so starkly drew attention.
So far, itis true, it has been
merely a matter of the awkward-
ness of having to eat on the stage
at all, The testing time begins
when we come to kippers. The
standard substitute for kippers
is dates, which are flattened out
and cut to shape. Fancy the sen-
satory imbroglia in which the
actor finds himself, when his
palate startles him with news of
something sweet whereas his im-
agination - if he is 'living' the
part, as the innocent phrase has
it is all keyed up for some-
thing very different.
Those who frown on self-in-
dulgence may be glad to know
that stage caviar can be very -
very nasty. In the West End, and
when supplied free by the mer-
chant, it may be genuine, but
farther afield what is substituted
for it will depend on the ingen-
uity and the kindliness of the
stage management. Instances
have been known of the com-
pany having to consume, partly
for reasons of economy and part-
ly because 'the stage manage-
ment had been more than usual-
ly inventive, cold boiled sago
tinted with gravy browning,
Gravy browning is a great help
in theatres where thrift must be-
come second -nature to those be-
hind the scenes. Burnt sugar, as
everyone knows is the classical
foundation of those strong spirits
which the personages of the play
can afford to drink so much more
freely than their counterparts in
life. Burnt sugar and water does
for rum, for whisky, for brandy'
- for anything, in short, that is
brown, except beer, which is
generally actual beer. But there
are theatres where one must save
even on the burnt sugar, and
there gravy browning takes its
place.
For the preparation of red-
dish -coloured drinks cochineal is
looked at askance, and some kind
of red cordial is the usual sub-
stitute. Champagne is, when
presented to the theatre by the
importers, champagne, though
not necessarily the best quality.
Otherwise it has a way of being
cider or some other fruit drink,
and many are the devices in use
off-stage to make a convincing
report when the cork is drawn
from the same bottle for the
third or fourth time. Tea, for
which foreign hotels have a hun-
dred cunning substitutes, on the
English stage is considered ini-
mitable, and tea is what the ac-
tors drink when you think you
see them drinking tea.
A good stage manager sees to
it that everything is made as
easy as possible for the players.
When chocolates have to be
eaten they are usually cut in
two, and they must always be
ones with soft centres. Grape-
fruit aro scooped out and the
halves filled with pieces of •
grapefruit out of a tin. Crum-
pets, which may prove particu-
larly awkward, are cut into
quarters. Certain things the ac-
tor must see to himself. Thus,
on the infrequent occasions" on
which he has to eat filed eggs on
the stage, he will be rash if he
attempts to eat the yolks; pru-
dent men make much play with
the whites. Soup. which must
also be neither- too ]lot nor too
cold, presents a problem of its
own, how much to serve out. If
the audience laughs a great deal
the actor will have time to con-
sume quite a lot. If, on the other
hand, it is a bad matinee and
there are no such welcome inter-
ruptions; which i3 inconvenient
for whichever character has to
clear the .table. -From the Lon •
-
don (England) Times, -
clear the table.
For several days a woman
called an :early -morning hill-
billy disc jockey on a Richmond
station to ask the time. Recog-
nizing her voice the next call,
the announcer told her the hour
and added. "We give it over the
air after every couple of rec-
ords."
Yes, I know," she interrupt --
ed, "but I can't stand hillbilly
music:"
MY S.:1:1001
LESSON
Strength Throught Trial
James 1:1-18
Memory Selection: Blessed la
the man that endureth tempta-
tion: for when he is tried, ha
shall receive the crown of life
which the Lord hath promisee
to them that love him. Jame;
1:12.
I saw the proving ground o1
one of our automobile manu-
facturers. What a road! What
hills and bumps! Here the weak-
nesses
eaknesses of a new chassis or axle
would s o o n be discovered
Improvements would follow
Thomas Edison tested over 1,801
types of materials for filament
use before he perfected the
electric light. Testing is neves•
sary in industry.
Life is a constant series of
tests. Some things we cal
change to suit us. To others wi
must adjust. The Christian it
not exempt from trials. Job was
the greatest sufferer. Yet in the
midst of it he exclaimed, "When
he hath tried me, I shall come
forth as gold." Job 23: 10,
God never tempts us to 44
evil. We may hasten our devilries
fall by playing with temptation
We need to earnestly pray
"Lead us not into temptation".
Then we cooperate with God to
helping him to answer out
prayer.
Suffering is one of the temp-
tations which come to us all
This trying of our faith is s
great developer of patience. The
business executive chafed under
his enforced hospitalization. In
his mind he was going over all
the work he should be doing.
He was restless and fretful. Ile
wasn't improving. This worried
him more. Then he realized he
was taking the wrong attitude.
The work was going on without
him. He might as well relax and
enjoy himself as well as a sick
man can. He immediately began
to improve. Soon he was back
to his work. The lesson he had
learned in patience will prob-
ably add ten or fifteen years to
his life.
A friend was going into the
hospital for a major operation.
She wrote to her sister, "I find
that when I am trusting the
Lord, I am not worrying." We
gain strength through trials It
we have faith.
Radio Boners
Radio Guide ran for years a
program known as "Radio Bon-
ers." Here are some of the gems:
The doctor remained under
the farmhouse roof all night to
pull the babies through.
In answer to a request we wilt
hear "What a Beautiful Place
Heaven Must Be" for a party et
four.
Here le a young lady with her
hands full of packages .and red
hair.
Go to McDonald's for your:-
next
ou -next pair of shoes. There you
can be fitted by expert men std
all widths and sizes.
Just add milk and water to
Pillsbury pancake flour and
you'll be ready to bake.
That is why you bake a cus-
tard standing in a pan of water;
Search is now being made foe
two girls who escaped from al
Aurora cemetery.
As I look over the audience
I see many :faces I should like t9
shake hands with.
Anyone who has listened to
me has had occasion to use as-
pirin.
Borden's brings you the
world's best cheese. Tonight w4
present some of Hollywood's
outstanding stars.
If you have trouble sleeping
fill your mug with ovaltine.
FOLLOWED ORDERS
Before a dines' at his home
for fellow gourmets, John M
Weyer gave his maid specific in-
structions in serving the dishes
"I want the fish served whole,
with tail and head," he said, "and
serve it with lemon in mouth."
"But that's silly, lemon iv
mouth," she protested.
"That's the way it's done a1
the best dinners in Europe," het
employer insisted.
The maid reluctantly agreed
She served the fish, complete
with tail and head. And she car-
ried
arried a lemon in her mouth.
Upsldeduwu to Prevent Peektns
ISSUE 35 - 1914