The Seaforth News, 1959-01-22, Page 3A Country - Yew
OF The $riow
"Oh, I hate to see the snow
eomine," said an otherwise nice
lady the other day, but it, came.
d don't subscribe' to this--I-like
the snow. Of course, you have to
Realize that I'm talking about
country snow -six inches will
tie up Boston; but two feet
doesn't bother us a bit, Row -
ever, there has developed a
change, and it isn't hard to find
• the Mai::er who detests the snow.
It was once welcomed as an
agreeable device.
The sweetness of adversity is
there with snow. Or, was, Fore-
most was its use as an insulator,
piling up against the house and
making the floors warm again.
The coldest weather was always
between freeze-up and snow,
when the foundations were ex-
posed. You could even put saw-
dust or boughs around, but the
wind would work in.
Then would come the first
snow and the floors would be
congenial, and Aunt Midge would
say, "Good, my feet are warm
again!" Pa or the hired man
would circle the house, tossing
loose snow against the building.
It made all the difference,
There came, with snow, a .dif-
ference in the feel of the out-
deors, too, The temperature could
be the same one day as another,
s
butwith snow ow on the ground it
felt warmer. There was a saying,
that snow, would take the chill
out of the air, and somehow it
did change our r perceptions of it.
You could pull on your long-
legged ones, and dig out the mit-
tens, and tie your hat on with a
scarf, but there would be a deep
chill until it snowed. It would
seem, at once, more bearable.
There was a change in the feel
of the ground. The frozen door -
yard was muffled, and your feet
didn't clunk down so hard, This
was much better.
I guess the thing was that we
didn't fight snow so much. We
used to clean off the doorsteps
and fix a place so the barn door
would swing, and trim around
the mailbox, but we didn't
shovel paths so much. We were
told the frost would work into
the ground .if we cleaned the
driveway, and frost all winter
meant deep mud all spring. We
hated mud more than snow.
Understand me,. I have no joy-
ous illusions about sleighing. It
was a cold, cruel means of loco-
motion, dreary , and numbing.
There is much to be said for the
heated automobile, snow treads
in place and a clearroadway. Of
all the winter thrills that senti-
mentalists extol, sleighing is the
one I'Il fight them about.
There was one thing, however,
that was worse. That was the
APING HUMANS No chump,
this chimp avoids cigarette
taxes by begging smokes from
visitors at Tropical Hobbyland.
The simian then screams for a
tight from its keeper.
last trip to town before 'snow,
when the road was a welter of
frozen logging ruts, and your
buggy wheels bounced around on
them until your teeth all came
loose in your head and your ears
(lopped up and down, fart of the
punishment came because the
horse kept ranging around to find
some place he could step with-
out jarring his shoulders .loose,
and heecouldn't.
After a trip like that, snow
would fall and the ruts would
all get filled in smooth, and the
runners would pack things down.
You could glide all the way to
town without a twitch, There
may have been something de-
lightful in the clink of bells, and
the cold brisk air, and such, but
I never liked sleighing except
that the road was always smooth-
er. So we were glad to see the
snow, ,
Sliding has pretty much gone
out, so nobody nowadays is glad
to see snow for that reason. We
all had double -runners, some-
times called bobsledsin this re-
gion, and the long hills were
ours to coast on. People put their
cars "up" for 'the winter, then.
There were teams and sleighs
on the roads, but they didn't
sneak up on us, and they had
some. respect for sliding young-
sters. There was no sand or salt
-• the teamsters would have
lynched anybody who put sand
on a road - and there were
times the dragging feet of a
whole sled load couldn't slow
us down for the turn. We'd pile
up and lug the pieces home.
Skiing has changed, too. We
had skis, some of which we made
from . staves, and some of which
we bought. We had no harnesses
on them, no skiboots, no poles, no
accredited appurtenances. We had
no lifts, huts, and clubs. There
was no fee, It wasn't a high so-
ciety sport; with stock -holders.
We didn't make up a party and
"go" somewhere to ski. I think
we liked the toboggan better,
anyway, but best of all was the
wide-runnered hand shark and
the long slides on thegeography's
crust.. Crust sliding was best,
anyway you looked at it.
I guess all the reasons we
liked to see snow are gone, real-
ly, . Snow brought the family
closer, and the house was 'cozier.
Where snow was a vehicle, it is
now an expense. Snow waspret-
ty when it fell, and the sun came
up in the.morning, but now if it
isn't pushed away in the morn--
ing the automobiles can't go by.
Now, more and more, comes
the one ,who says, ."Oh, I hate to
see the snow!"'I don't, I like it.
If it doesn't contribute anything
to my newer experiences, rm
grateful to it for past favors. -
By John Gould in The Christian
Science Monitor. •
The Demon. Smoke
Throughout Britain 'next
month, newspapers will begin
carrying classified ads addressed
to the thousands of Englishmen
who have dried without conspi-
cuous success to give up tobacco
for one reason or another. Those
who read the ads will find that
they are invited to attend.
weekly meetings in rented halls,
where an organization with the
unalliterative name "Smokers
Anonymous" will offer them
faith and fellowship in their
daily battle against the •demon.
Founded recently by fifteen.
London doctors and social work-
ers, the group, according to Dr.
Wilfred Lester, has the follow-
ing aim: "Smoking fs a most
serious sort of drug addict'ion,
and with a real psychological
basis. We all regress to the need
for the breast, and cigarettes
provide a substitute , If some-
one says he has to smoke, we
tell hisn that 25 per cent of the
world doesn't smoke If they
can do it, why can't he?"
Doing business without adver-
tising is like winking. at a girl
in the dark. You know what
you're doing, but no one else
does.
CROSSWORD
PUZZLE
8. Infuse tile 33. Prig..
into 26, Vent
10. Female rabbit 48. water . (rider
11. Bitter vetch 40. Metal
17. Eur eervlce fastener
tree 43. Variety of
76. Force cabbage
22. Civetllke cat 96. Affection •
24. Dig In earth 46. Angers
8. Poems 26. Progeny 47, Coin
4. Crave 26. Tiers 48. Dantp and
6. Insane 27. Early Amer, chilly
6. To-do Indian 49, Miss
7. Savage 28. Emphasized reQltlltenne
8. Commence 26. Delayed 50 Danish fiord.
ACROSS
1, Fitted with
shoes
6. Black birds
9. Cyprinold
fish
12 System of
signals
13. Redact
14. And not
15. Mimics
16. Treacle
18. In addition to
20. Abrupt
descent
21, Circlet
28. Decorates
26. Toole offense
80, San white
cheese
21 Dan, weight
82 Dogma
84 Anglo-Saxon
(ting
86 Telegram
87. Loathed
20. Appears to be
41. Durr
12. Ill
44. Style of
printing
48, Curb
61. 1.41.(q. NA tad
62. Brash
thoroughfare
b,l
88, Instead
64. Impartial
66. Small ntaas
50. Tare
:7, Repose
DOWN
2. Incrustation
2. Expect
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Answer elsewhere in this page
BOMB'S A LIFESAVEIt - Forestry Service plane drops a water
"bomb" in efforts to save a farm building near Malibu, during
war on a brush fire., Aerial bombardment with water and
chemical mixtures is an experimental method of fighting the
destructive blazes.
TIIEFA1Th! FRONT
jilRt&e1l ._
"Can the Family Farm Sur-
vive?" is the challenging 'title
of an article by Jared Van
Wagenen, Jr. in a recent issue
of The Christian Science Moni-
tor. I think you'll be interested
in it, and with that fine paper's
permission Inn passing it along.
* • a
Somewhere in the writings of
James Russell Lowell there is a
bit of autobiography in which,
he tells how in his boyhood he
knew a very old man, one who
in his far-off youth had talked'
with a certain ancient man who
told tales of how he with his
own eyes had seen the witches
hung on Salem Hill. Then
Lowell proceeds to moralize con-
cerning how just one long life-
time bridged the gulf between
scenes such as those and the
::cure and tolerant New Eng-
land civilization of his time.
In much the same, although
in less dramatic, fashion I may
say that in my boyhood years I
was casually familiar with eld-
erly men who had grown up
here and whoseyouthful mem-
ori,s ran back and linked with
our earliest pioneers -men whd
had fought at Lexington and
Bunker Hill and marched with
Sullivan's army. Then after the
war was done they joined them-
selves to that New England
wave of emigration which (most
commonly in ox carts or cover-
ed wagons) swarmed westward
across the Hudson to lay in the
tangled wilderness of central
and western New York the foun-
dation of an enduring civilize..
tion.
One of these Argonauts was
my great-grandfather, and as
the present head of a farm fam-
ily .which has tilled the same
acres since 1800, it seems proper
for me to inquire if the same
type of life on the land we have
always known can continue in
this assembly -line era.
If we judge by analogy and
the remains of a forgotten rural
industrial life which lies all
about us, the answer is an em-
phatic "No." New York State
alone has literally thousands
far in excess of ten thousands -
of abandoned millsites and their
accompanying milldams, testi-
mony to the very diversified in-
dustrial life of the countryside
which reached its full flowering
in the years before the Civil
War. , •
Most of our strictly rural
communities attained their max-
imum population at or about the
census of 1860. In much of rural •
New England the high-water
mark was earlier, Indeed there
are no small number of New
England townships which had
more inhabitants at the first
census in 1790 than have ever
been reported since. Of course
'the popular explanation for this
is "farm abandonment." It is
' true that this has been a major
factor .in the decline, although
on the whole less important than
the di•appearande of the rural
handicrafts and the industrial
life of the community.
Shrinking rural populations in
the older regions of the country
may be considered an almost
universal phenomenon, but the
extent to which this movement
hasprogressed varies greatly
with the locality,
Perhaps there is no better field
in Which to study the problem
than New York State, As every-
one knows, measured by wealth
or population or rommerce-the
criteria by which we usually
compare one state with another
-New York is undebatably the
Empire State. Perhaps it is not
so generally recognized that it
is also agriculturally very im-
portant, Among the states of
the Union it stands only 17th
in acreage, but it rates.(varying
somewhat with the particular
year) sixth or seventh in the
value of the agricultural produc-
tion, (In 1957, it slipped badly,
falling to 12th place.)
a • *
According to the definition
established by the, Federal • Bu-
*react of Census for 1950, It re-
quires astonishingly little in the
way of either area or argicul-
tural activity to be classed as a
farm. Officially any place of
three or more acres is a farm if
the value of agricultural prod-
ucts, exclusive of the home gar-
den, is as much as $150.00. An
even smaller acreage is so classi-
fied if its production reaches
$250.00.
Fortunately we have for New
York State fairly dependable
data concerning the size of
farms and number of farm fam-
ilies for more than a full cen-
tury. A contemplation 'of these
figures lends small support for
the popular thesis that the "fam-
ily farm" is on the way out and
that the future belongs to the
consolidated, corporation -man-
aged "big business' type of farm-
ing. These are the figures for
the average or median size of
all farms reporting for the 100
years between 1850 and 1950.
In 1850 the typical New York
farm was made up of 112.1
acres. When another 25 years
which included the Civil War
had -passed, the sze was 106.1.
Twenty-five years later at the
turn of the present century, it
was 99.9 acres. As late as 1925
it stood at 102.1 acres. In a
word, there were 75 years when
the medium size p,f New York
farms did net show change
enough to even indicate any de
finite trend.
However, a quarter of a 1011.
Wry later in 1950 there was a
somewhat different story, be-
cause the median' farm- acreage
had made a fairly steep increase
and stood at 128.e. Evidently
there was a new force abroad
in the land. It seems plain that
the progressive mechanization
of farms, especially during the
last dozen years, and the greatly
increased capitalization required
has forced the consolidation of
many small farms, Even so, the
=easing aoreage of surviving
farms fallsfar short of being
an economic revolution..
The foregoing is concerned
with the acreage of New York
farms, When we come to con-
sider the number of farms and
farm families, there is a very
different story.
By 1850 the state had been
pretty 'generally occupied and
cut up into farms, and the pi-
oneer period was about done.
Indeed the census of 1855 re-
ported a larger total farm acre-
age than has ever been found
since, although the maximum
number of farm families was not
reached until 1875 when we had
nearly a quarter of a million
farms,
From 1855 to 1900 the number
of men who balled themselves
farmers held on bravely with
only minor and inconclusive
fluctuations, After the turn of
the century the decline became
unmistakable. By 1910 it had
become steep and for the past
15 years it may be described by.
no lesser term than precipitate.
Between
e 1900 and 1950 more
than 100,000 farms disappeared
from the assessors' rolls,
a
* *
Now while statistics may not
lie, they 'often require interpret-
ing, and in this case the situa-
tion is not as desperate as it
might at first appear, True, the
number of farms steadily grows
less and some of this is due to
the consolidation of farms under
one management. Examples of
this can be found in every rural
community.
However, such consolidation
of farms is not the greatest rea-
son for their declining number.
The major factor is actual land
abandonment and farm extinc-
tion. No lesser authority than
the New York State Department
of Conservation some years ago
estimated that more than three
million acres once classed as
farm land had gtiietly again
slipped back into the forest from
which it had been wrested with
such incredible labor.
Our pioneering forebears of a
century or two ago were a stout-
hearted, land -hungry .race who
in their enthusiasm cleared, and
after a fashion farmed, a great
deal of land that ought always
to have remained in forest. The
passing years have shown how.
greatly they were mistaken.
Most of our so-called land
abandonment is a movement
that is all to the good. Certain-
ly we want the " "family farm"
but we do not want it if it is
too small or steep or stony or in-
fertile that it cannot afford a
reasonably full life for its oc-
cupations.
in an 'era when strange eco-
nomic doctrines and heresies are
abroad in the world, the land-
owning farmer is a priceless
asset for an orderly society.
Give a man a hundred or two
acres of decent land that he may
call his own and at once he
becomes a stout pillar of the es-
tablished order. It may well be
that we farm folk are in a way
a somewhat dour and stubborn
breed. In U.S. there remains a
hard core of some millions of men
road to wealth but as a way of
life. There is not convincing
evidence that the "family farm"
is on the way out. Rather, it
will be a part of our civilization
for all the foreseeable future.
LINE S 11001
J1iSSON
By Bev tt, narelay Warren
(3,1.1.
Jesus Emphasizes
the Cost of Greatness
Mark 10:35-45
Memory Selection: Whosoever
of yeti will be the ohiefest, shall
be servant of all. Mark 10:44.
When James and John asked
for the chief places in the king-
dom they were giving expression
to the type of selfish ambition
that the .other ten disciples prob-
ably possessed. Hence they were
displeased with James and John,
Were these two trying to get
ahead of them? Self-seeking with
hidden carnal motives is often
the result of false self-evaluation.
Carnal displeasure always re-
sults from a discovery of maneu-
vering for place, because others
are desirous of the same recog-
nition.
Jesus showed the disciples that
the way of greatness is, the way
of service. It is the way of hap-
piness, too. Olga Deterding, the
twenty -eight-year-old daughter
of a multi -millionaire oil king,
stopped at Dr. Albert Schweit-
zer'si '
m sslon station in Lamba-
rene in French Equatorial Africa,
when on a world tour. The plight
of the lepers and the opportunity
for service there caused her to
give up sixty thousand dollars a
year income, a villa with eleven
servants, and, a suite at the 'Ritz,
to become a nurse at the colony.
Dr. Magit, a visiting doctor from
Beverly Hills, California, re-
marked, "She has that satisfied
look which comes from an inner
happiness and no regrets."
Noel Phillips, a 23 -year-old
masonry contractor of Lawton,
.Oklahoma, ran the following ad
in the newspaper: "Man or boy
18 to 23 years old. Must have
court record. Prefer man who is
on parole. Bring paper and apply
in person ..." Mr. Phillips said
when he was at the Englewood,
Colorado, federal reformatory,
he prayed on bended knees: "If
I get out of here, I promise to
help others like myself." The
following day he was paroled.
He has employed over 400
parolees or former convicts and
has helped many more by finding
them jobs elsewhere. He is find-
ing happiness in serving others.
The greatness of the Master
is best observed in His taking
the towel at the Last Supper. The
carnal Peter objects to Greatness
stooping. Dr. C. H. Zahniser,
writing in Arnold's Commentary
speaking of the incident writes,
"Someone has said, 'We are all
fighting for the top in the church,
but there are so few fighting for
the towel'." How true!
Betty Elliott, who is working
among the very people who
killed her husband with four
other missionaries, writes, "I
have a stronger conviction than
ever before that the things of
this world are pretty paltry in
comparison with doing the will
of God."
Upsidedown to prevent Peeking
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' DOWN, BUT HE SEEMS HIGH -Grounded, this gull seems to be high as a kite as it staggers
through the snow. May haveimbibed some potent antifreeze.