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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1961-05-25, Page 3A Time Of Melody On The Fctrm. Spring came reluctantly to our valley, Even in mid-April, snow fell, great winds roared, and the cold caused the tender snow- drops to cower back toward the dark, chilly earth from which they had so recently emerged, Late cold and snow caused the heads of daffodils to droop, and not pop up again as they have been known to do. Planting is ever an act of faith, but to see the Amish farmers following their horse - drawn, plows over the fields was to wit- ness itness an act of utter trust. Now, however, the cold has passed and we realize once more, and poignantly, that this is the wonder season, the time of re- birth and renaissance, A time of tender. green, of alternate show- er and sunshine, of returning melody and swift bird flight through the skies, It also the season 'of resur- rection, We find the Moravian way of remembering Easter thrilling, In the town near us, every man and boy who can play a band instrument is welcome to join the Moravian band for this holy celebration, the only stip- ulation being that they gather in the town square in time to be ready to play at 2 a,m. Several hundred strong, they assemble with their leader and at a signal they raise their shin- ing instruments to their lips. All the sleeping people in the town are awakened by the glorious burst of Easter music, and indi- vidual prayers are said as the tremendous impact of the good news of resurrection is once more conveyed. The players are sent in groups to the north, south, east and west, to every part of town, playing hymns of joy which have for their message Christ Is, Risen. After Iwo hours, they all come back to the church, where a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs end sugarcakes awaits them. Then the players' reassemble. At the stroke of 5 the church doors open and the Bishop steps forth, "The Lord is risen!" he pro- claims in a loud voice, and all. the people who have gathered for the sunrise Easter service Tnswer, "He is risen indeed!" his is a Moravian Easter, The season was also a time of birth in the home of Trina and Eli. Now they have a baby sun, and Emmeline and Amos a new grandchild. Thy named him John. Not for any relative, merely because he looks the way a "John" should. Already self- contained and solemnly aware, he' resembles Amos in, iro small degree. Molly and Mel, the rosy twins, are ecstatic. No hint of sibling jealousy here. They are yet too young to have been taught the belief of their people, that pride is a sinful thing, and. it is plain to see they think their "Jenny" the most wonderful baby in the land. Emmeline stayed with Trine and the children for the first few days, then Hilda, who had kept house at home meanwhile,. changed places with her mother. But Trina is not one to stay in beda minute longer than neces- sary, and before .many days had passed she was in . the kitchen long enough to bake gumdrop bread add "pink lozenger" cake for a treat for the twins. The bread, a great favorite with Mol- ly and Mel, employs the use of dates ,and chopped fruit flavor (no black) gumdrops. The cake, pretty as its name and delicious, calls for three-fourths of a cup of pink lozenges dissolved in one-fourth cup of water. "This SNAPPY - hi Japan as im our own country, the old stereo» type of the farmer seems to have vanished. Tetsunobu Ma-' saki, above, looks more like a photographer than what he is, an apprentice farmer come ' let the U.S, to study methods, He was one of 58 top agrieul- tunaal students ' selected tend Was photographed as he ar• 'rived in Som Francisco, • ISSUE 20= 1961 takes a whole night," Trina says gaily, "but it's well worth wait- ing for.". "And what is growing in the peat pots on the kitchen win- 'dew sill?" we asic, seeing how luxuriant vines.' are already twining down from them. "Mushmelons, the twins, chorus together. It is true that muskmelon seeds started in this manner and planted later on, pot and all, in the hills never know they were.: traes slanted, and they will bear weeks 'ahead of vines from seed sown in the open, In many small ways Amish housewives are being freed from some of the drudgery that was once the common lot, Many now have small gasoline motors for their washing machines, the same "one -lunger" models which power the saws and hammer mills used by the men, Writes Mabel Slack Steelton in the Christian Science Monitor. Modern day buggies are also seeing changes toward more con- venient designs. They will al- ways be drawn by horses, of course, but Trina and Eli's buggy has side windows that can be closed from the inside, and there is upholstery for easier riding. Yet there is no fear of them ever becoming slothful. The love of work is too much a part of them, and finding easier ways of doing it only means that more work will be done. Emmeline is all for the im- provements in their way of liv- ing, even if she does take a nos- talgic look back . into the past' now and then. "Fun it was to bundle up in the old days and sit wrapped in horsehide _robes in a bobsled 'when we went to church or to visit relatives on off Sundays," she says, "Bells on the harness rang out so joy- ful over the snow. Fun, too, to walk over the frozen fields as a short cut to singings." But she is too jolly and outgoing to pine for joys that are past and finds the present well worth living. Amos remembers when farm- ing was more, profitable than it is today for the small farmer on a general farm growing wheat, corn, oats and hay to feed a dairy herd, hogs, , and chickens. The low price of corn at gather- ing time last fall was a blow to the cash, corn farmers, which' takes in almost. all in our coin- munity. And as usual, they look- ed to Amos 'for advice, meeting in his home in what for them is a combination Town Hall and Grange meeting, though it is giv- en no name as such, Helping Emmeline and Hilda with the serving we heard some of what Amos. had to say that evening. "With corn bringing only 94 • cents a bushel now (in mid -De cember.), and 85 cents at gather- ing time, it should be kept on the farm and turned into • dollars in the form -of beef, mutton, pork, milk, eggs, and fryer meat," he told his neighbors. "Feeding 84-centcorn to 18- dollar hogs is a corn -hog ratio of 21 -to -1," Eli murmured. He is not yet a "graybeard," yet he knows how to figure scientifi- cally. "And we all know that any- thing over 15 -to -i is good," an- other farmer said.. So they plan, pooling their ideas to get the most out .of what they work so hard to raise. When farmers with their modern tractors spill up the rich earth • in sections, Amishmen are plod- ding along• on, foot, trying to plow en acre in a day. But this is never mentioned, and prob- ably never thought of. They do , the' best they can while preserv- ing their way of life. Their best cash crop has -lost one-third of its value, still they are happy to have a plan that calls for feeding all the corn they grow and, if necessary, buying more. And as Gus Ginnerich points rout, while spearing a delicately browned. fried oyster from the platter, "One sure thing about farming is, you always have plenty to .eat." Plenty to eat, homes where parenthood is respected, where children are a joy and a blessing, and where the Heavenly Father is spreme es the Giver of all 'good and perfect gifts. Is it not enough? They think it is, and so do we. 'I don't say a dress:•should be tight, but I dothink that when a woman gets into a dress we should have some idea of where she is,' Bob Hope • Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking ®o© ©©a© ©yap© muom k mum ©pump mann EUMEIOU UMW LINUWW MO MO MUM MUU Mia MUM DOWD mom= ©©Q©©o Demo© WOW ©tuOra ©due©©o® WUM - a©0r ©WO ►al.9I num r D D AH; WONDERFUL SPRING - Smoky, a pet racoon, samples a jonquil's fragrance, THE FARM FRONT It has long been recognized that those engaged in the prod- uction of fruits and vegetables suffer from the. fiercely' compe- titive nature of the merchandiz- ing services, It is equally true that all merchandizing, irrespec- tive of the commodity being of- fered for sale, is . highly compe- titive but it is held by many that no other commodity, be, it a primary product or a product of secondary industry, is subjected - to the same degree of pressure; to the ,same frustrating strains. The reason for this is clear for it can be said with some degree of' justification that no other in- dustry endeavors to get by with such free use of the "open tick- et", It can be said, also, that it is doubtful If any other industry makes use of such a ridiculous. tool in the movement of product to market, writes M. M.- Robin- son in a recent issue of "The Grower," • •" • W The "open ticket" is the direct result of the development many years ago of the commission market at wholesale level. The commission market came into being because of the uncertainty of daily supply of perishable products. The commission whole- sale operation worked fairly well until the advent of the modern chain store system. Then the picture changed, for the chains, operating their own warehouses and engaged in fierce competition for the consumer's dollar, began to seek and receive produce ostensibly on commis- sion with the variation that there was no salesman's'commission or handling charge. It became the open ticket wherein the receiver paid his own price for what he received. Sometimes the ulti- mate price paid bore some rela- tion to the price on the legiti- mate wholesale commission mar- ket and sometimes it did not, depending upon the whim or. mood of the chain store buyer or his estimates of how badly the farmer wanted his goodwill. From this it was not a far cry to the trucker who, picking up supply at the farm, was being handed the produce also on an open ticket. The shipping point shipper, finding that he had to ship to the. chains on an open ticket, began to accept produce from the farmers on the same • basis. The end result was the gradual disappearance of the firm sale involving a set price marked on the sales receipt at shippers platform. Titus the present day system became' established. It was nice for all but the. farmer who never knew what he was getting for his produce, It added to the fierceness of the competition am- ong shippers, among truckers, among wholesalers and among retailers. What could be nicer, from their standpoint, than the acceptance of produce without a . ,price tag, All that was neede to assure profits for the various handlers was _volume, Certainly it permitted all kinds of abuse and out of the,abuse calve 'steps to meet the situation, • „ The uninitiated ask why the farmers permitted such a system to develop, The question is a good One and the answer is that the farmer, dealing in perish- ables, was always 'seeking a market home. If he had one he was afraid of losing it, He operated ,in a realm of fear. In self-defense the growers be- gan to challenge the system. with group action - co-operatives, compulsory marketing board and even voluntary marketing groups, In other words, group ac- tion grew out of abuse and as it grew r'e antagonism of the dis- tributors grew also; for they• could discern, and rightly so, the foss of the freedom so generously handed to them with the open ticket. • • • The writer has heard a chain store executive criticize the wholesale market and the wide price fluctuations which charac- terize that market. He was thinking in terms of his inability to read the opposition's moves. His criticism of the wholesale market was justified, but what he either did not know or was not prepared to accept was the degree to which Ontario fruits and vegetables, moved to market, no price attached. Recently a small group of growers, fed up'; with existing practices, decided upon collective action in an effort to put some stability into the' merchandising of their produce: They -had been turning a large percentage of their produce ever to one or two truckers -turned -dealers on the open ticket. The truckers or deal- , ers, in turn, were doing the same thing with the outlets they had established including one or two chains. When the buyers for one of the chains heard about it they were a bit disturbed because they feared the loss of what they des- cribed' as "e. good deal". The chain in question was in habit of taking in three days' receipts ` and then setting the price. The trucker in turn would then take his cut and pay off the growers. That the growers began to rebel was inevitable. Forty-three winter rhubarb growers decided during the past winter that all chances of equit able returns for their product were, non-existant so long . as they spread their rhubarb around among wholesalers on a commis- sion basis. They decided to elim- inate the competition by putting their output through one com- mission house only. One or two of the big buyers didn't like it and tried to nullify the effort by • seeking supply elsewhere, As the Noble 43 held 80% of supply the most obdurate buyers had to suc- cumb. Thus, all were paying the same price. From the chain store standpoint this was good on the premise that each knew what the competitor was paying. On the other hand it destroyed the freedom essential if they were to under -cut the other fellow. • * • For two years apple packers and growers representatives have maintained a voluntary pricing system, A joint committee meet- ing each week has established recommended minimum prices for apples; It has worked and the apple industry- has recovered from the dismal state It was In two years ago, The retail prices of apples moved upp without any reduction in amount sold. • M * The Grower has contended for a long time that the inability of Ontario fruit and vegetable growers to adjust gross income to increased costs of production is simply due to the silly system under which the fruits and the vegetables are sold. If govern- ment wants to help, and it does, the help can come, not in the form of subsidies, but in the form of regulation of which the ' first would be the abolition of the open ticket by declaring it illegal, This could be followed by some regulation of imports received on commission and by self-imposed controls on the On- tario Food Terminal. • * • The other day a Leamington dealer invaded the Terminal with a load of Ohio hothouse toma- toes, He sold part of the load at a firm price to one wholesaler and then dumped the balance of the load with two or three other wholesalers on commission. Thus was a market "stablilized". A grower of onion setts paid a visit to the Terminal and hasn't re- covered from his inability to un- derstand a market in which' setts were selling all the way from.. $4,50 to $9.00 per 50 lb. bag. What was the true price? Who could decide? • . • Then too, there should be in- vestigation and action on' split cars; on claims on the railways for damaged produce. The average farmer will accept what he gets for his produce if the true law of supply and de- mand is allowed to function, The "open ticket" doesn't permit this. All it does is establish and main- tain pressure on the farmer re- gardless of actual supply. Wonder what chain store stock certificates would be worth if a Shyer could place his order with a stock broker and decide the price after he, the buyer, received the certificates?. What price, for instance, Loblaw stock sold in this fashion? Even if you are . on the right track, you'll be run over if you sit down too long, NDAYSCIIOOI IESSON By Rev. 1i, 8: Warreli; I3"A•, 15.». The, Importance of Diligence Proverbs 6;6.9; 22:29; 24:30.34; Ecclesiastes 3:22 Memory Seleetion: Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. Colos- sians 3;23. .How true is the saying, "Sa- tan finds lots for idle hands to do," A policeman friend tells me that with more unemployment they have more people in the cells. A few people work themselves to death; some hate work; the rest of us get along with it with varying degrees of toleration and enjoyment. The habits formed in childhood and youth are im- portant. The girl who never learns how to set a table and do other chores around the home until she takes a course in Home s m Economics at High School is to be pitied. One of the advantages of .being raised on a farm is that everyone•learns to work at au early age, They learn to be re- sponsible concerning little chores and are able to meet 'the bigger tasks as they grow. Just over a century ago Lord Shaftesbury led in passing legis- lation in England in protecting children from overwork in fac- tories and mines, When we hear today the question, "What can we get for the youth to do?", it too often means, "How are we going to entertain them?" Chil- dren who earn a little money selling papers, shovelling walks, mowing lawns, etc., often turn out to be leading citizens. Paul commanded, "If any would not work, neither should he eat," 2 Thessalonians 3:10. It is unfortunate that so many take an unfair advantage of our welfare state. It is amazing how those for whom the municipality must provide housing are able to secure money to be drunken much' of the time. When a person commits him- self to Jesus Christ, he has a goal for living. His life which was Pelf -centered is now Christ -cen- tered. He says with Paul, "For me tolive is Christ." He wants to share the good news of salva- tion With 'others. He wants 'to help in the sending out of mis- sionaries •and in advancing the kingdom of God in every way he can. Life is a joy and work is a privilege when it is done to the glory of God, 4. Indiscretion 20. Illustrious CROSSWORD PUZZLE 5. Of us 29. Help. C. Shoshonean 32. Low-priced Indiana 33. Provide 7.. Artificial 35. Chromium language 36. Animal's home 5. Par and wido38. Stifr-legs•ed 9. Dodge wading bird • ACROSS 52. Plant seed 10. Sleeper 40. Day's march I. Book of the 58. Couple 11. Complete 42. City of --- Bible Bible lab.) 54. Large volume 18. Killed Alto 4, More than 55. Col tivr tor 17. Not married. 44. Filthy place three DOWN20. Birds of prey 45. Constellation ,, 9. "TMStan's" SI. Crookedly 47. Vigor dog.. - 1. Deserter 35. Scene in an 42. Dove's note 49. Pamela sheep 51. Measure of length tab.) 18. span of years (slang) 18. wheeled. ' 2. elf vehicle 3. Deer flesh 14. Tribe of India 15. Shave the head 17, Archangel in Pars dine Lost" 19. Poorly 19. ,'entteman (Si,.) 51. Poseeselone 54. Rouse from sleep 2T. Pln.t-bottamed boat 28. Confined s0. Behold 31. T'Ieid of knowledge 12. 'infant 33. Tniert exactly 54. Tyne measure 55. Rebuke 38. Medieval stringed tnstrnmen t 37. "1r.,rcoe 39. Burned 41 Hobo 43.. Solt metal 44, iclnd of sailing vessel 48. "treed for riches MI, Semester F1.'rnae n' not, opera 55. Discord 25. Select body Answer elsewhree on this page LOST WORLDS - You may think the world's in a' mess, but Jack Mamdaville has proof - a lot of it - as he's swamped by dozens of balloon -shaped world globes, Ma'ndavllle is vice pt'esi- dent of a Cleveland saving and loan company which bought up a large supply of the globes to pass out to new depositors. Before the gift operation could be launched, a rash of newly created nations made the models hopelessly out of date, leaving the banker with the weight of or-ny worlds on his shoulders.