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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1960-07-14, Page 7Er Hayfields - And Sk"'ir">l:iwberrles One of the nicest nutmeats of comely living conies along about not: when the sensitive nostril quie.ge on the Junetime scone and word goc.9 out that the will, field strawberry is available again. Nobody, anywhere, re• garde ee of his preferment and stai eel, can do any better with a won than you can. Probably 1,e isn't doing so well, and in his opuRetce is envious. At least it he was once a country boy. 1'v: felt essayists and poets always overdid the strawberry when they worked on it, letting their subject run away with them. They have a way of mak. ing the strawberry sound Like an orgy, an unbridled stuffing. In a way, this is too bad, because the strawberry is a dainty and delicate thing, and never had any wholesale complexions. It isn't that kind of bounty, and should always be treated with respect and restraint. Oh, sometimes if the season is properly moist and propitious you'll find a big one here and there - but wild strawberries stay in their own size range. Tales of bringing them in by the pail, as big as your thumb, stretch the license, and indicate more emotion than either recol- lection or tranquility. You may chalice upon an odd patch here and there that will occasion alarm, but year in and year out strawberries run more to frag- rance than size, and require 25 or 30 to the dozen, You'll get more of them at the handful than at the peck. These metered feasts o f rousing shortcake should be approached with lifted eyebrows. Not that we haven't had short- cakes -but not in the gorging range. Each morsel was savor- ed and swallowed with thought and gratitude, and made to last as long as possible, In the old days when the farm here was self - sufficient, Grandmother used to line up her eight chil- dren in a scavenging operation that moved up the field and back again in ordered arrange• meat, getting every last berry. She laid down a rule against eating any at the time. They'd come back to the house with quite a take, and although they'd eat some for supper, the bulk of the harvest would be "put up" for winter. And as they tried to make everything, In those days, go as far as pos- xible, they'd "piecen out" the strawberries with rhubarb. The thrifty pieplant stood rich and hearty, and its long limbs would be eut up and added to the stewing kettle. This gave bulk, but the • dainty flavor of the strawberry held its own and the combined confection was domi- nated by its lesser part. Some few berries, and per- haps only in a bountiful year, would be preserved in glass by themselves - but the children might never taste them, for they were kept for special occasions. Those days saw the minister and his wife about twice a year, par- ochial calls tinted just right for supper. Those were more string- ent times, and the visits were no doubt predicated on appetite as much as spirit -at least the suppers were always better 'on such occasions, That would be a time for straight strawberries and no rhubarb. I had an aunt whose girlhood ambition was to grow up and marry a minister, so she'd know what preserved strawberries tasted Like: I've always liked picking ber- ries. It suggests a providential kindness where time is your only investment, and you are on the ground floor of prosperity, Strawberries are hardest to pick, but the reward is the greatest. The sun caresses the back of ISSUE 28 - 1960 HONEY OF A JOB - Bee fancier George Kuzaro noticed a swarm of bees that had invaded a car parked in Pittsburgh. He donned a makeshift net, skillfully brushed them into a box, your neck in Junetime intimacy, and the lush hayfields strive to hide the quarry before you can find it. You can't stand up, as with blackberries and raspber- ries, and you can't rake as with blueberries. You do such close things as stare a friendly adder in the eye, or come in six inches over a bobolink's nest, You find yourself talking intelligently with grasshoppers and spiders, sharing their down e to - earth opinions. But that's where straw- berries are. You see a cluster, and it looks big and hearty, but after you've picked the berries off they look tiny in your hand, and even tinier in the dish. It takes longer to cover the bottom of a strawberry pail than any other kind, even though it is well to leave a few sterns to keep them from smushing too much. Then you have to hull them. Dainty, fragrant, soft and juicy, strawberries are lovely, but they are mean to hull. The best way is to dump them on the kitchen table with the hope others in the family will lend a hand. Slowly, painstakingly, they get cleaned, and there is forever the ultimate feeling that you had more than that, really. But even a few in a saucer, covered with cream, are enough to emphasize the eternal worth of the experi- ence. If you get enough for a short- cake, life holds little else that can compare. I think if I were to sum up all the pluses and minuses of country vs. city liv- ing, I'd stake the advantage un- waveringly, with unanswerable effect, on the little wild, field strawberry and its dainty ability to confound all other "values." Let there be always Junes and hayfields, and the fragrance of tiny strawberries in the warm grass, and you will have a rea- son for ruralities when all else fails. This one, you will be glad to know, is a pretty good year. The blossoms came and we had a warm spell to favor them. Then it proved rainy, and the soil soaked up the moisture that makes berries lush and full. It is a season when all the blos- soms caught on, and each stem has a number of berries. Not all seasons are like this. The meadow "bottom grass" is heavy. The ground steams in the sun. The stems are long. And we have strawberry stains on the pine kitchen table. Let me not bore you with further details. All is well, and that is all you need to know -By John Gould in The Christian Science Moni- tor, (CROSSWORD PUZZLE 6, One (dial,) 7. Shepherd's Matt (Scot.) s. Twist ecu 0. Boast 10, Bright 11. Cathedra ACROSS 67, Knock 16, Animate 1, I6xttnct hard DOWN 20. Frozen 4. Uttered1. ]soman being dessert 21, Harpoon 22, thluine 23. Part pial cd 24. Petty mallet, 16, l(xnrbil ant Interest (pe) 2. Bo indebted 0. Venae or duct it,. Beard of 8. Fishing Brain 4, Avalanche 18. Pine fabric 5, Porcine I4, Copy animal. 35. Lax 17. radian 3a, An of Mini curb (colloq.) 15. Centel 21. Shakes With cold 25. Rhythmical stress 23. Jnhnm•cnitr 20, Think 81. Thin 32,Wouk unit 33, Move smoothly 84. Need cnntn.lner 35. in proportion 9inuntafn ridge 37,Military defense wort. E3. Pass tt 8011e through 40. 1,,05 animals 92. •I'nrf used ea brei 44, Pronoun 45. Yung 47. 7'nilnwed 52, Cn1nt 62, Mlatatte 64, Yale 56. dolt monad 55.73nrnngh 1t, l's. 27, variation 30. nonan date 33, 1,ubrlcaten 34. Paying guest 36. Broad street (ab.) ' 7. tn•atls 8, Afterscng 1. In that place 3. River in Nast nnsata 6. iicucii 011 l:m?Just) river • s. Shout • e. Heart a l 1,,,,,rrSe 3 12 15 4 6 7 13 9• 10 11 14 6 IB 19 0 21 14 31• 36 22 23 25 29 30 33 34 26.27 i 31 36 37 as 45 44 39 40 43 47 43 49• 60 61 53 63 54 65 64 6 37 57 Answer elsewhere on th s Face FA FRONT �fi4•� Cows chewing fkitir cud on Boston Common - known as the U.S, nation's most famous long - ago cow pasture - were only one of the phenomena of June Dairy Month. The idea of such goings on, of course, is to dramatize for the public the service which dairy farmers and the whole dairy in- dustry provide for people to- day. The quart of milk on the doorstep or half -gallon jug in the supermarket are mostly taken for granted by shoppers long ac- customed to the best, But quality does not just hap- pen, in dairy products or any- thing else. Top quality can be assured only by unremitting vigilance and constant seeking of new ways to iinprove products, 8 4 0 In this search for better methods and better products, the dairy industry stands with justi- fied pride in the front ranks of food producers, We had a glimpse of what this means down on the farm and in the dairy when we went visiting recently. Out on beautifully manicured grassy grounds in Brockton, Mass., we toured the plant of Pro- ducers' Dairy Co., one of the old. - est farmers' cooperatives in the United States. They tell you there that "the process of making milk is the same today as it was at the beginning of time, but the ways of getting ettin it to the con- sumer have changed mightily." a: * * This cooperative, which was established in 1917 and has weathered many economic cycles since, now bottles between 28,- 000 and 30,000 quarts of milk daily from 39 local farms, and delivers the milk by the most modern delivery methods to 25 cities and towns. The general trend toward fewer dairymen who produce more milk is clearly shown in the re- cords of Producers' Dairy Corn- pany, which had around 60 mem- bers in the beginning, who were putting out around 5,000 quarts daily, Now 39 farmers produce enough milk so that this dairy's year-round average is 21,000 quarts a day, n r * Machinery does almost every- thing in the dairy. now - even to t h e complex assembling, faster than human hands could do the job, of the cartons into which the milk is poured. The cartons go into machines folded flat and come out boxed, glued, filled and closed. The sparklingly clean dairy has floors of acid -resistant brick held together with acid -resistant concrete. The machinery, walls, floor, everything, looked anti- septically clean. While certainly not the biggest dairy in the Unit- ed States, we venture th'at this is one of the most modern. Slightly over a hundred em- ployees keep things going here, receiving annually wages of near- ly a half -million dollars - while, the cooperative's records shows over $1,000,000 is paid to local farmers for their mill(. W * G One of the safeguards which leas kept Producers' Dairy pros- perous through 40 years is the .clause written into their bylaws allowing the dairy to accept no. more than 10 per cent of its total volume of mills from any one producer -- therebyavoiding too great dependence on any one farmer. One of the farmers providing milk for this cooperative is Abra- ham Green, now farming the Leona Farni family homestead on which he was born. Mr. Green, in white shirt and city trousers, welcomed us for a tour of the farm, Mr. Green has a herd of about 200, including Guernsey, Swiss, and Holstein cows - he just uses his own judgment in buying stock, he says. "Purebreds are a rich man's hobby. We want cows that are milk factories," he ex- plains. Where a farmer used to expect about 16 pounds of milk from a cow daily (" a one -can cow") some now give 60 to 65 pounds "I have one giving 90, another around 70. I try to aver- age 40 pounds per day per cow." What has brought about this fantastic increase in production per cow? Many things: including breeding stock, better feeds, bet- ter handling of the animals in general. e On the day we visited Mr. Green we watched his cows come into their clean, de luxe barn from their lush green pas- ture across the road - backing up traffic along Route 28 as they crossed the road at what was for them a lively pace. As we admired this spacious, inviting farmstead Mr. Green described how he had gradually built it up since the death of his father when he, young Abe, was only 12 years old. He has built all the farm buildings since 1982 and has cleared 150 of his 200 acres. He did not disclose his total investment, but did tell us that the milking system installed in his barn alone represents about $10,000 worth of equipment, states a writer in the Christian Science Monitor. Here milking machines convey the milk from the cow into glass tubing extending above the stalls, which take the milk directly into a big, cooled bulk tank. During the whole process the mill( is not touched by hands or exposed to air. It is picked up and delivered in bulk tanks directly to the dairy. Dragonflies Have Ancient Lineage There is no group of insects that has a more astonishing life - history than the dragonflies... . "Nymph" is another term for the young stage, and here de- notes the time it spends under water, between hatching from the egg or crawling out of its skin as a fully winged insect. During this nymphal life there is no sudden change, but the skin is cast at intervals as the dragonfly grows. The wings ap- pear, in wing -cases, little by lit- tle after the fourth moult, and the internal structure gradually alters together with the shape and structure of several external organs, . , . The nymphs live and breathe under water, sometimes buried in the mud, sometimes climbing about the weeds, often in still water, sometimes in swift running streams. , . . When fully grown the nymph leaves the water, climbing out on to the bank or up reeds, trees, 3u'i,-s-s;te'lns or anything 21andti, 1;onletiney W1,li 3n7 (pito 1a long wry b i r,, tt1(12;4 d. wn slut th,'r,• oiler droit it will epl11 the 81111 nl'i struggle out 1s a w1T1g4,d in 58201, It is not .0 pe 111'21 dragonfly, First, les Witte ell in.. setcs, it has to clry, and the e•ren1,. pled wines: and long abdoman have to {expand. , . . Many of the dragonflies have; such a pe,iverful flight that fluty can, and do, m3 ,11,1'.' for eever:tl l+uudrecl miles. Certain ge tuel:a seem to be more prone.te 'Mere - tion than others, but not always ail the species of neer genus, Amongst nut' sir{e ;outlies the very rare Vagrant Sertlpctrum i». a complete immigrant, while the Rcdveined and the Yellow - winged Sympetrum are mo.tly visitors from across the see '1118 Darter dragonflies like sunning with widespread wings, which they do conspicuously on reeds, rocks or roadways, and they rely for their safety on the extreme swiftness of the "take. oil," which is accomplished ow- ing to the "ready" poise they assume. The smaller of the Hawker drag.•nflies adopt the same attitudes, but the large spe- cies of Aeshna prefer to hang while resting, and probably rely for safety on their keener sight. The dragonflies are of very an- cient lineage, certainly having descended from the giants found in the Upper Carboniferous rocks, of which several fossil species and genera have been found. The largest of these Palaeozoic ancestors had a wing - expanse of twenty-seven incises. The Giant Age of Insects was followed in the Mesozoic period by a steady decline in size and a greater specialization 04 struc- ture, till we reach definitely modern forms in the Upper Jurassic beds.... It will therefore be seen, from this brief sketch of their life - history, that dragonflies are both beautiful and intensely interest- ing insects, and will well repay greater attention to a detailed study, - From "The Dragonflies of the British Isles," by Cynthia Longfield, No Cinderella Will the shoes worn by the Queen at her wedding and those worn by Princess Margaret at hers, be on exhibition one day at a museum? Queen Victoria'sshoes dis- prove the generally accepted idea that she had a tiny foot, for the soles are nine inches long. It is known that the first per- son to own Queen Victoria's shoes after she had parted with them was a woman known as "Augusta W." In a letter this woman wrote in May, 1841, she says: "A thous- and thanks, my dear sir, for sending me the pretty shoes of the Queen. After I had heard so frequently that Her Majesty had' the prettiest foot in the kingdom I should certainly have expected to find a tinier shoe. You must agree with me that they are no Cinderella's slippers!" «..Y SC11001 JSSON by [tel it 11.trclay 'liVai'l'eac li.A.. 88.1). Social Justice . Then and Now 5:10-15,21-24. 1kieneery ,Selection: hate this evil, and leve 1118 good, and es- tablish judgement in the gate. Antos 5:15. Amos spoke out boldly against the social injustices of his day. The rich were; inhumane toward the poor. They oppressed them in a kind of human slavery. (2:0). They built 'beautiful homes by defrauding the destitute (5:11). There was no court of justice at which the poor could receive their dues. (5.121. The intemperance of the na- tion was no less disgusting. One passage (6:3.0) is sufficient to show the sensuousness wheel sudden wealth had promoted. Immorality had progressed to the point where it did not even call forth shame, (2:7). This was finding its place in the religious festivities (4:4i after the pattern of the surrounding pagan nations. Are we better today than Is- rael was in the day of Amos, 2700 years ago? Itis impossible to make an accurate comparison. We dont know what proportion of the people were guilty of the sins which Amos so vividly poi,. trays. The laws, now as then, are designed to protect the poor. But often the poor lack the knowledge and the finances to secure their rights. Many have lost the house they were buying because they were unable to refinance a sec- ond mortgage, due to the huge bonus demand. There is a lot of fraud in the world today. As for intemperance and immorality, if Israel were worse than we are today the situation was indeed terrible. When one reads the pro- phecy of Amos and then reads the newspaper, he cannot but be struck with the similarity in the condition of the people. But where is Amos? Billy Graham speaks out pointedly against these conditions and he is heard by many. But the tide of ungod- liness is not stopped. It is time to pray. Let us say as Amos, "Let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking rl [151 3 2f J. tl S1 13 gLL Q Ica,©FaIQIojv 4r D9 0H:t ?J O[. d:, 9S V =; �' is � EI©©1(r ,�s V EnlNO. 1Hcs naPIA COI "l ' . Ellen.° EICiar, ©© N 1 IIEiidi tom' • 1 t " 1©Q©©'1r;a't.MCj :©©C7 In `9+3d 0 o w HEAD HUNTER -- Grim evidence of modern-day cannibalism, this crudely decorated skull is displayed in Stockholm by Swedish explorer Dr. Sten Bergman. He came by the trophy in New Guinea. QUiCK AND THE DEAD - Brought to a halt, a peasant funeral procession near Tunis, Colom- bia, gives way to a group of bicycle racers and their escort trucks.