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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1956-08-16, Page 2Jumping 3eans ►_{own MeddI Way thy does the Mexican jump- ing bean perform its nervous antics? This oft -repeated ques- tion has given most profitable seasonal occupation to hundreds of Mexican men, women and children who pack and ship the beans to novelty stores in Bri- tain, the U.S., Canada, and parts of Europe, The jumping bean is a native of the state of Sonora, in north- western Mexico, near the town of Alamos. The bean, resembl- ing a green coffee bean, grows en the plant Arbel de la Flecha (Tree of the Arrow) in the semi -eroded hills and gullies near the town. Harvesting is done early in July, when the heavy torrential rains cause the tiny pods l start popping and falling to The ground. The "secret" of the jumping bean is an insect known as the "jumping butterfly," which lays its egg in the flower of the Tree of the Arrow about this time of year. A grub develops from the egg, and it satisfies its hunger by burying deep into the seed pod of the flower. The pod of the flower has three cells, and each contains a seed of the tree. While the grub completely eats the first two pods, it takes up a permanent home in the third. Somehow the grub knows that the hot July sun, combined with the rains, will explode the pod and drop it to the ground. The grub "insures" itself against this emegency by "bombproof- ing" itself in a silky net. The live grub inside the bean causes the jumping by rearing up somewhat like a spirited miniature horse. As the grub brings down its forelegs, the bean jumps or moves. If harvesters would not inter- fere with nature, the grub would finally evolve into a little white butterfly. Care is taken that enough do become butter- flies to assure a healthy annual crop. Millions of the beans are har- vested annually and shipped in five -gallon cans which hold about 30,000 live beans. Since the Mexican jumping bean has almost human attri- butes, special - care must be taken in seeing that it remains healthy during transit. The cans that are their temporary homes must be perforated for ventilation. A carload of the beans in cans causes a noise like rain pelting on a tin roof. If the can is touch- ed, all noise ceases for a time. Then the beans begin their re- peated jumping and clicking again. r implies Popular Have you a dimple? If so, you're in the fashion. Not since Victorian times have dimples been so popular as they -are to - •day. A dimple is actually noth- in more than a dent or depres- sion in a part of the body where the besh is very soft. What causes dimples? Under- neath the outside skin on the face are fibres of varying length, which run in all directions. Oc- casionally these fibres are too short in a certain spot, and so pull the skin which forms the dimple. A dimple -making device dis- played recently had three but- tons with rubber points fitted to a wire halter which pressed them against the chin and cheeks of the "patient," producing perman- ent and attractive dimples. • .ted as MOTHER NATURE GETS ROUGH - Huge hailstones and blister- ing heat recently took their toll on United States farms. Photos here show typical damage. Near Walker, Iowa; William Mc- Namara, above, lost 95 acres of corn when hailstones pelted his field. Some of the stones, besides breaking 24 windows in his house, went through the roof. At a turkey farm near Albany, Ore., a heat wave killed some 13,000 turkeys, below. Tempera- tures, during the wave which struck western Oregon, reached 106 degrees. 11El/in FRONT kaussell Recently, in The Christian Sci- ence Monitor, I ran across an article about farming in Holland -that is to say, that part of Hol- land recently reclaimed from the sea. It was so interesting that, without apology, I am pas- sing it along to you. Hope you enjoy it. * * Fourteen years ago, fishing boats chugged across the IJsel Meer here. Noisy sea gulls dove low over white -rimmed waves and climbed again in the wind that blew from the North Sea. Today, at this same spot: there stretches the smooth central square of Emmeloord, new town in a new land won from the sea. And all around there lies the wide fertile farm country - red -roofed farmhouses and black and white cows amidst miles of green fields and meadows -ten small villages in all. This is the Northeast Polder, the northeastern most of the ter- ritories won from the former Zuider Zee. It is a civilization grown out of the sea bottom, an Atlantis created by the courage, ingenuity, and work of men. t * * This is new Holland where nothing -grass, trees, or roads - is older than 12 years. Even the microscopic organisms needed for the development of the soil were brought in by men. The people, too, have come from outside, from the old main- land. Living on this polder land is the realization of something they hardly dared to dream of: a farm of their own. In this CROSSWORD PUZZLE ACROSS Castor and 1. Tibetan priest Pollux 6. Merry 8. Brave man 12. .Practice (4. Draft animals 15. Absentminded 76. Bathe 17. Remnant of fire 18. Character in "The Faerie Queene" 19. Greek commune 20. Stake Z. wish 23. Treadle 26. Cut down 27. Of recent origin 28, Passage out 29. Lively dance 30, Sand hill 31. Goddess of of the harvest 32. Negligent 33. Trials 34, Sweet solution 36. Sport 37. Small boat 33. Metal 99, Undermine 42. Split 48. of the sea. 45. Sun disk 40. Officer of a will 47. Drove 48. Brownie 49. Inra'e home DOWN. 1. Mother of 2. Line of revolution 3. Fit together 4. Skill 5. huge person 6. Continent 7. However II. Cavities 3. Looks at closely 10. DeeplY respectful 11. Unity 13. Merciless 19. Light moisture 20. Baseball implement 21. Canine 22. Female sheep 23. Mexican laborer 24. Hasten 25. SPY 26. Mingle 29. Shake 30. Haunt 32. Ballad 33. Overblouse 25. Inclination 36. iDscharges 38. Cab 39. Location 40. - and Andy 41. Saucy 42. College cheer 43. Grown boys 44. Wine cask Answer elsewhere on thfh page. overcrowded country, only the eldest son can hope to inherit his father's land. Farms are too. small to be divided. And prac- tically all arable land is under the plow. But also for agricultural la- borers, mechanics, and clerical workers, the polder is a new frontier. Many of them have found jobs in and around the town of Emmeloord. There are three automobile agencies in the town, a straw factory and many other private businesses. w 4, 001,k � LESS N It It;lrt I1 v Warren. Lt.A. it.f) The Way of Christian Fellow- ship, 1 John, Chapter 1 Memory Selection: If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we nave fellowship one with another. 1 John 1:7. No one was better qualified than John to write of the way • of Christian fellowship. 'Of all the disciples he was the closest to Jesus, He leaned upon Jesus' bosom at the last supper, He was "the disciple whom Jesus loved." In the first general division (1:4 to 2:29), the apostle states that God is light (1:5); then he proceeds to show that we must walk in the light if We are to walk with him. He then shows the conduct expected of those who walk in the light. In the second division (3:1 to 4:6), he emphasizes the fact that God is our Father; and he shows that we cannot have fellowship with him unless we act like sons of God. In the third- division (4:7 to 5:21), John states that God is love. The only way, then, whereby we may walk with him is for us to walk in love; and the requirements of such a walk are made clear. To walk with God we must have our sins forgiven. "If we confess -- he is faithful and just to forgive." As we walk in the light the heart is cleansed. One who has fellowship with God does not walk in sin. (3:4-10;2:1). If he should fall- into sin, he 'has an Advocate who is eager to assist him back to restored fellowship with God. Ralph Thompson writing in Arnold's Commentary lists other charac- teristics of the walk with God. It is a walk of obedience to the Father; it is a walk of love for the brethren, it is marked by an absence of love for the world. Those who walk with God have faith when they pray. This walk is a way of happiness. "These things write we unto you that your joy may be full." (1:4). Off the central square two broad shopping streets - modern stores displaying the la- test merchandise from Amster- dam and the Hague. Where the street ends, the cow pastures begin. Lining the curb are trim small cars, many of them be- longing to polder farmers. New branch offices of banks, saving institutions, and farmer coopera- tives tell of financial growth. Facing the square is the en- trance of the town's civic cen- ter, topped by a group of bronze sculptures. Inside the center there is a theater for stage plays and movies, a modern hotel, and an artistically designed farm ex- change hall which can be con- verted into an assembly hall within an hour. * ' * A glance from the third -storey hotel window takes in the steep- les of new churches all around, thelong rows of sturdy modern brick residences surrounded by• flower gardens and by the be- ginnings of parks and play- grounds. The soil on the polder's 2,000 farms is some of the most pro- ductive in the world. It is irri- gated through a dense network of underground pipes whose total length exceeds that of the equa- tor. The pipes connect with small ditches; the ditches empty into canals, the same canals on which ships bring supplies and carry away the farm produce. Huge • pumping stations regulate the polder's water supply in relation to the inland sea. Farming is highly mechanized, from the automatic feeding of the cattle to the harvesting ma- chines and the machines with which the crops are stacked in the large, fireproof barns made of prefabricated concrete. .Development of the Northeast Polder, like that of the future other polders, has been done through a peculiar combination of socialist planning and capita- list free enterprise. * * e Apart from the conditional lease, the farmers are free to run their farms after their own plans and under the risks of private enterprise. While half of the crop is subsidized by govern- ment price guarantees, the rest is sold on the free market. This system apparently pays off handsomely. Some polder farmers clear a net income of $10,000 to $15,000 a year, 'com- parable to that of a higher of- ficial in the middle brackets of the Dutch civil service. John's letters have a warmth reflecting the intimate fellow- ship which he enjoyed with the Saviour. His second letter to a Christian lady expresses his de- light in the Christian character of some of her grown children. In his third letter to Gaius he expresses his disapproval of the church boss. The church board who allows a Diotrephes to dominate is as guilty as Dio- trephes. Angier's aradfSe Every fisherman dreams of the perfect day when he will hook a fish every 'time he casts his line, and go on doing so un- til his basket is full. What a tale he would have to tell! Such a dream may now come true as a result of experiments with electrical aids that have been going on recently It may then be possible for the angler to put aside his rod and to take with him instead two metal poles connected to a portable battery. When these poles are put into the water and held some dis- tance apart they will attract fish to them All the fisherman has to do is to lif the best ones out with his net. It would be as easy as that. This novel fishing idea was discovered by studying the elec- tric eel. It had long been known that this South American freshwater fish was capable of producing a, powerful electric shock. It was decided to, inves- tigate this shock in order to find out how and why the fish pro- duced .it. As a result we now have a clear picture of a fish that leads an astonishing all - electric life. A full grown electric eel may be anything up to five feet long and is capable of sending out an electric shock of at least 500 volts. The • highest recorded voltage was 650. Even young eels only six inches ' long are capable of a full strength shock. With these shocks the. eels cap- ture their food, skilfully adjust- ing the strength according to the size of their prey, so that it is stunned but not killed. Whexi electric eels are put into an aquarium tank it takes them a few days to adjust their shock mechanism. At first most of the fish put in for food are killed outright, and the eels refuse to eat -them, High voltage shocks, though, are not the only electrical weap- ons employed by these remark- able fish. They also make use of radar in finding their, way about and in locating their prey. The young eels have quite well developed eyes, but these de- generate and are useless by the time the fish is about a foot long, When they are swimming they give out a series of fifty- volt impulses into the water at the rate of about fifty every second. These get reflected back from objects in the water, and return to the eels, which have special organs for picking thein up. This sixth sense replaces their lost sight. How does a fish produce such a big electrical voltage of the least twice the ovltage Of the electric mains? Running clown each side of its body to the end of its tail the electric eel has a series of special muscles. These behave like a long line of bat- teries connected upr in series. But how the fish release the electrical discharge remains a mystery. If an electric eel can stun or kill fish with a discharge of electricity surely it might be possible to design fishing equip- ment based on the same prin- ciple? A number of scientists have been working on this theory for the last ten years with encouraging results. They found that if two metal rods are connected up to a gen- erator and put into the water, any near -by fish are drawn . to- wards the positive rod. They behave, as though hypnotized, being quite incapable of swim- ming away and are easily scoop- ed up in a net. Even large and crafty fish are enticed from their lairs by this modern pied piper. From angling by electricity it is only a step to deep sea fish- ing with larger apparatus, and the Russians are reported to have _made some headway in this direction. Electrical fishing has important advantages over the present .method of trawling. When a trawler is working, small as well as large fish are scooped off the sea bed inti its huge net. Although fish below a certain size are thrown back into the sea, a great many .of them are killed or too badly in pured to survive, Trawling, therefore, does immense lluarm by reducing the potential catch of future years. With electrical fishing it may well be possible to control the size o.f fish attracted to the nets by varying the strength of the electrical discharge into the wa- ter. Then only fish of marke- table size would be caught, and the smaller ones would escape injury. Some investigators see possi- bilities . in applying electrical aids to whaling. A. powerful discharge could draw the whale towards the ship, so powerful that it might prove pretty un- comfortable for anyone who had the misfortune to fall over- board! When attracted along- side, the whale would be meas- ured and if below minimum size released unharmed by • switching off the current. Besides having pointed the way towards fishing by elec- tricity, the electric eel has an- other claim to fame. It is now most valuable to medical men trying to, find out more about how our nerves work. Thal nerves give out tiny electrical discharges of about one tenth of a volt has been known for a long time, and a good deal of research has been devoted to finding out how they do it. During the war a team work- ing on the electric organs of the eel made the discovery that they seemed to be nothing more than nerves magnified several thou- sand times. The whole organ consists of between five and six thousand separate elements, each capable of giving a tenth of a volt discharge, like a nerve. In- vestigating •it has therefore pro. vided information that could not have, been obtained by study- -ing single nerves. Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking CHICAGO FLOODED -BY WHEAT -An avalanche of wheat is descending on Chicago, Nearly one million bushels arrive every 24 hours, as the wheat harvest run reaches its peak. In one seven-day period, 6,825,000 bushels poured in -enough to load a train 36 miles long. in typical scene, above, workers guide power shovel at the city's largest grain elevator, the 17 - million -bushel Cargill installation. The shovels pull the grain into high-speed elevating equipment. >,;?i?.9fi iSY{_ 9 `. yc-�xt.>•`< vv{ 2, ?k �?r>i Y< 1. :1 M 1:: � . ....�S,os ra•.? a. .xo• �ti«��.. F o...>x.. a N; SMALL -FRY MERCHANDISING -No 'wasting of. summer''vacation time Indians for nine-year-old Johnny Lemes. The enterprising youngster' vehicles and, as seen above, fixed himself up aused;car lot, complete Chapman, eight, who lives next door, is interested in making a deal e trade-in. playing cowboys and collected a number of with taxi so.. ":.earyl but,doesn't seer, to .4ave 7. 3 , •7 . 5 b 9 a 8 9 10 II 12 13 r4 15 .. 16 17,.. IBf19 • 1 rte,?' ;��, h µ b \ 20 \\\.� � 22 23 24 22 *-24 Y 28 29 �1L}v tI t 30 31 . 32 ���� 43'3- koSSeieSSIIS ` `... 37 �`''ss �� ` 39 yo Nl 42 ' 1•N, 48 SIN 4344 4 41 \ 48 ;��'}}^, 75749 49 Answer elsewhere on thfh page. overcrowded country, only the eldest son can hope to inherit his father's land. Farms are too. small to be divided. And prac- tically all arable land is under the plow. But also for agricultural la- borers, mechanics, and clerical workers, the polder is a new frontier. Many of them have found jobs in and around the town of Emmeloord. There are three automobile agencies in the town, a straw factory and many other private businesses. w 4, 001,k � LESS N It It;lrt I1 v Warren. Lt.A. it.f) The Way of Christian Fellow- ship, 1 John, Chapter 1 Memory Selection: If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we nave fellowship one with another. 1 John 1:7. No one was better qualified than John to write of the way • of Christian fellowship. 'Of all the disciples he was the closest to Jesus, He leaned upon Jesus' bosom at the last supper, He was "the disciple whom Jesus loved." In the first general division (1:4 to 2:29), the apostle states that God is light (1:5); then he proceeds to show that we must walk in the light if We are to walk with him. He then shows the conduct expected of those who walk in the light. In the second division (3:1 to 4:6), he emphasizes the fact that God is our Father; and he shows that we cannot have fellowship with him unless we act like sons of God. In the third- division (4:7 to 5:21), John states that God is love. The only way, then, whereby we may walk with him is for us to walk in love; and the requirements of such a walk are made clear. To walk with God we must have our sins forgiven. "If we confess -- he is faithful and just to forgive." As we walk in the light the heart is cleansed. One who has fellowship with God does not walk in sin. (3:4-10;2:1). If he should fall- into sin, he 'has an Advocate who is eager to assist him back to restored fellowship with God. Ralph Thompson writing in Arnold's Commentary lists other charac- teristics of the walk with God. It is a walk of obedience to the Father; it is a walk of love for the brethren, it is marked by an absence of love for the world. Those who walk with God have faith when they pray. This walk is a way of happiness. "These things write we unto you that your joy may be full." (1:4). Off the central square two broad shopping streets - modern stores displaying the la- test merchandise from Amster- dam and the Hague. Where the street ends, the cow pastures begin. Lining the curb are trim small cars, many of them be- longing to polder farmers. New branch offices of banks, saving institutions, and farmer coopera- tives tell of financial growth. Facing the square is the en- trance of the town's civic cen- ter, topped by a group of bronze sculptures. Inside the center there is a theater for stage plays and movies, a modern hotel, and an artistically designed farm ex- change hall which can be con- verted into an assembly hall within an hour. * ' * A glance from the third -storey hotel window takes in the steep- les of new churches all around, thelong rows of sturdy modern brick residences surrounded by• flower gardens and by the be- ginnings of parks and play- grounds. The soil on the polder's 2,000 farms is some of the most pro- ductive in the world. It is irri- gated through a dense network of underground pipes whose total length exceeds that of the equa- tor. The pipes connect with small ditches; the ditches empty into canals, the same canals on which ships bring supplies and carry away the farm produce. Huge • pumping stations regulate the polder's water supply in relation to the inland sea. Farming is highly mechanized, from the automatic feeding of the cattle to the harvesting ma- chines and the machines with which the crops are stacked in the large, fireproof barns made of prefabricated concrete. .Development of the Northeast Polder, like that of the future other polders, has been done through a peculiar combination of socialist planning and capita- list free enterprise. * * e Apart from the conditional lease, the farmers are free to run their farms after their own plans and under the risks of private enterprise. While half of the crop is subsidized by govern- ment price guarantees, the rest is sold on the free market. This system apparently pays off handsomely. Some polder farmers clear a net income of $10,000 to $15,000 a year, 'com- parable to that of a higher of- ficial in the middle brackets of the Dutch civil service. John's letters have a warmth reflecting the intimate fellow- ship which he enjoyed with the Saviour. His second letter to a Christian lady expresses his de- light in the Christian character of some of her grown children. In his third letter to Gaius he expresses his disapproval of the church boss. The church board who allows a Diotrephes to dominate is as guilty as Dio- trephes. Angier's aradfSe Every fisherman dreams of the perfect day when he will hook a fish every 'time he casts his line, and go on doing so un- til his basket is full. What a tale he would have to tell! Such a dream may now come true as a result of experiments with electrical aids that have been going on recently It may then be possible for the angler to put aside his rod and to take with him instead two metal poles connected to a portable battery. When these poles are put into the water and held some dis- tance apart they will attract fish to them All the fisherman has to do is to lif the best ones out with his net. It would be as easy as that. This novel fishing idea was discovered by studying the elec- tric eel. It had long been known that this South American freshwater fish was capable of producing a, powerful electric shock. It was decided to, inves- tigate this shock in order to find out how and why the fish pro- duced .it. As a result we now have a clear picture of a fish that leads an astonishing all - electric life. A full grown electric eel may be anything up to five feet long and is capable of sending out an electric shock of at least 500 volts. The • highest recorded voltage was 650. Even young eels only six inches ' long are capable of a full strength shock. With these shocks the. eels cap- ture their food, skilfully adjust- ing the strength according to the size of their prey, so that it is stunned but not killed. Whexi electric eels are put into an aquarium tank it takes them a few days to adjust their shock mechanism. At first most of the fish put in for food are killed outright, and the eels refuse to eat -them, High voltage shocks, though, are not the only electrical weap- ons employed by these remark- able fish. They also make use of radar in finding their, way about and in locating their prey. The young eels have quite well developed eyes, but these de- generate and are useless by the time the fish is about a foot long, When they are swimming they give out a series of fifty- volt impulses into the water at the rate of about fifty every second. These get reflected back from objects in the water, and return to the eels, which have special organs for picking thein up. This sixth sense replaces their lost sight. How does a fish produce such a big electrical voltage of the least twice the ovltage Of the electric mains? Running clown each side of its body to the end of its tail the electric eel has a series of special muscles. These behave like a long line of bat- teries connected upr in series. But how the fish release the electrical discharge remains a mystery. If an electric eel can stun or kill fish with a discharge of electricity surely it might be possible to design fishing equip- ment based on the same prin- ciple? A number of scientists have been working on this theory for the last ten years with encouraging results. They found that if two metal rods are connected up to a gen- erator and put into the water, any near -by fish are drawn . to- wards the positive rod. They behave, as though hypnotized, being quite incapable of swim- ming away and are easily scoop- ed up in a net. Even large and crafty fish are enticed from their lairs by this modern pied piper. From angling by electricity it is only a step to deep sea fish- ing with larger apparatus, and the Russians are reported to have _made some headway in this direction. Electrical fishing has important advantages over the present .method of trawling. When a trawler is working, small as well as large fish are scooped off the sea bed inti its huge net. Although fish below a certain size are thrown back into the sea, a great many .of them are killed or too badly in pured to survive, Trawling, therefore, does immense lluarm by reducing the potential catch of future years. With electrical fishing it may well be possible to control the size o.f fish attracted to the nets by varying the strength of the electrical discharge into the wa- ter. Then only fish of marke- table size would be caught, and the smaller ones would escape injury. Some investigators see possi- bilities . in applying electrical aids to whaling. A. powerful discharge could draw the whale towards the ship, so powerful that it might prove pretty un- comfortable for anyone who had the misfortune to fall over- board! When attracted along- side, the whale would be meas- ured and if below minimum size released unharmed by • switching off the current. Besides having pointed the way towards fishing by elec- tricity, the electric eel has an- other claim to fame. It is now most valuable to medical men trying to, find out more about how our nerves work. Thal nerves give out tiny electrical discharges of about one tenth of a volt has been known for a long time, and a good deal of research has been devoted to finding out how they do it. During the war a team work- ing on the electric organs of the eel made the discovery that they seemed to be nothing more than nerves magnified several thou- sand times. The whole organ consists of between five and six thousand separate elements, each capable of giving a tenth of a volt discharge, like a nerve. In- vestigating •it has therefore pro. vided information that could not have, been obtained by study- -ing single nerves. Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking CHICAGO FLOODED -BY WHEAT -An avalanche of wheat is descending on Chicago, Nearly one million bushels arrive every 24 hours, as the wheat harvest run reaches its peak. In one seven-day period, 6,825,000 bushels poured in -enough to load a train 36 miles long. in typical scene, above, workers guide power shovel at the city's largest grain elevator, the 17 - million -bushel Cargill installation. The shovels pull the grain into high-speed elevating equipment. >,;?i?.9fi iSY{_ 9 `. yc-�xt.>•`< vv{ 2, ?k �?r>i Y< 1. :1 M 1:: � . ....�S,os ra•.? a. .xo• �ti«��.. F o...>x.. a N; SMALL -FRY MERCHANDISING -No 'wasting of. summer''vacation time Indians for nine-year-old Johnny Lemes. The enterprising youngster' vehicles and, as seen above, fixed himself up aused;car lot, complete Chapman, eight, who lives next door, is interested in making a deal e trade-in. playing cowboys and collected a number of with taxi so.. ":.earyl but,doesn't seer, to .4ave