HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1952-08-14, Page 3They Live at tither
Animals' Expense
Living at the expense of some-
body else, and in turn providing
for another parasite, is as common
in the animal world as among men.
An outstanding case is that of the
flying fish. Pursued by its enemies
in the water, it leaps into the air
and is often caught by the .pelican.
When the pelican has got its
pouch full of fish it wings its way
to land and starts to eat. The
pooch is a bag of skin hanging
from the under -jaw, and in order
to get a fish out of it the bird must
open its mouth, and by a toss of
the head throw a fish out of the
pouch.
The seagull, knowing this, and
being a lazy fellow, watches the
clumsy pelican until it flies ashore
to feed. Then the gull, with the
impudence which comes so natur-
ally to villainy, actually /sureties on
the long head of the pelican and
waits.
Stolen Meal
The great mouth yawns open, the
tasty fish is flipped but of the
pouch, and in another instant it is
in the gull's beak!
But the sharp eye of the light-
ning -like frigate -bird has been
watching, and the moment the gulf
leaves its perch on the pellican to
enjoy his stolen meal, it sees a
stronger and faster bird hurtling
towards it like a rocket.
The gull opens its beak to scream
in fear, and with a graceful swoop
the falling fish is caught by the last
thief of all,
It must be said for most animals
that they rob or murder solely for
the purpose of getting food, but
here and there we come across a
thoroughly depraved creature who
steals for the fun of it.
All Bait Gone!
One of these is the North Atneri-
can wolverine. It will follow a
trapper at a safe distance, and af-
ter the trapper has carefully baited
all his traps it will steal alt the
bait quite as carefully.
Sometimes it will wait until .a
o bination-He-otter-Light
Warms Small Horne Areas
Y EDNA HOLES
fi1? the new electrical appliances that make life easier and,
as a result more fun, there is one utility fixture. that
gives a maximum return for the money spent. And to the
family fighting the battle of the budget, this is indeed wel-
come news.
A new combination all -electric ceiling heater, overhead
light and air circulator is designed to eliminate the hazards
of the ordinary wall or portable auxiliary heater. It's in-
stalled in. the ceiling for the utmost in service.
This places it, of course, beyond the reach of children's
hands and eliminates the chance of burns or shocks suffered
from hacking into an Ordinary heater.
A.. fan draws the air from the ceiling, pulls it through the
unit and thus heats it and forces it down into the room
where it is circulated for uniform comfort from floor to
ceiling. Thus, it's ideal for bathrooms, bedrooms, nurseries,
recreation rooms or other small areas requiring heat, light
and air circulation.
Besides all its other advantages this utility appliance tits
into the decor of a retia, unobtrusively lending beauty to it,
fox has been caught and then cool-
ly walk up and kill it. It then tears
the fox from the trap, eats as much
as it wishes, buries the rest, then
goes on to inspect other traps,
Trappers hate the wolverine,
which seems to be able to avoid the
cleverest traps available. One trap-
per spent a week making an elab-
orate and complicated series of
traps, laying cords about the ap-
proaches to the bait, so that the
most wary animal would have been
sure to stumble on one and pull
the trigger of a gun placed so that
it would shoot the disturber. ,
The next morning the trapper
visited his "foolproof" wolverine -
catcher and found every cord bit-
ten through and every scrap of the
bait gone!
I 'wouldn't even try t� make a
huess as to how long wild oats
ave been a problem—and a serious
one—to farmers. Just when you
think you have the pesky things
ticked for keeps, they're back again,
worse than ever. They remind me
of what a little niece of mine once
said about the weeds. "Wouldn't
it be grand" she said, "if things
like strawberries were as anxious
to grow as the dandelions?"
* * *
But, according to Prof.. L. B.
Shebeski of the university of Sask-
atchewan, wild oats would be
easier to control if farmers would
help nature to crack the seed coat
in order to provide germination and
growth at a time when the plants
• could be killed off by tillage. Wild
oats, by the way, were especially
bad in many north Saskatchewan
fields this Spring.
* *
Farmers knew that wild oat seed
sometimes lay dormant for years,
. 'hitt did not realize this dormancy
could be broken if the oat seed
coat was cracked to allow germin-
ation. Unless the seed coat was
cracked the seed would not ger-
minate, Prof. Shebeski said, Nature
did this job of cracking the seed
coat by alternate freezing and
thawing in the fall and alternate
wetting and drying of the soil in
the growing season.
Prof. "Shebeski advocated wild
oat control be started in the fall
with shallow fall tillage to bring
as many seeds as possible near the
surface for the alternate freezing
and thawing process. This seed
would germinate in the spring and
could be eliminated by tillage.
* * *
Many farmers found their low
spots badly infested with wild oats
because they had followed a policy
of leaving tillage until this land
was drier. Prof. Shebeski advised
farmers with low, waterlogged
land .to till it as soon as possible
in the spring, To germinate and
produce a plant any seed needed
three things — temperature, mois-
ture and oxygen. The low land had
the moisture and the tentperathre
would come as the spring advanced,
but lacked oxygen. The low spots
should be worked as early as pos-
sible in the spring to aerate the
land, This procedure would give
the wild oat plants the best chance
to grow enough to get their second
leaves and be at the proper stage
for killing by further tillage.
* * *
The sowing of the proper crop
should be delayed until this pro-
cedure had been carried out and
the maximum amount of wild oats
grown to the stage when they
could be killed off and not infest
the crop.
Young Ancient Mariners—Tried and tested sailors, Inge Wand-
schnelder, 11, and her brother, Bernd, 0, right, struto the cabin of
that 57 -foot ketch, "Optimist." in which they crossed the Atlantic in
43 days with their parentis and a crew of two.
Needless Dollar Fuses
One cannot help feeling sorry for a lot of Canadian hotel managers,
tourist resort operators and store clerks in these days of the depreciated
U.S. dollar. Cor fusion and resentment have been generated, especially
at border points where American money is circulating almost as freely
as our own legal tender.
And all this fuss is unnecessary.
When the shoe was on the other foot no thinking Canadian expected
to have American hotels, or stores accept our dollar at par. Most
Canadian visitors to the U.S., as a matter of course, had their money
changed into U.S. currency before they crossed the border. It's a pity
that our American visitors would not adopt the sante practice.
Where they don't and insist on using their own currency here we
should not hesitate to discount it and we should tell thein this:
"It may have the same name but our dollar is not the same as your
dollar. For a long time you took 10 cents off each of our dollars before
you even started to do business with us. Times have changed. You and
a lot of other people have been buying into Canada, have been investing
in our oil wells, our mines, our industries. That investment has made our
dollar scarcer, more valuable. It is the old law of supply and demand."
—From The Financial Post
,The experimental station at
Lacombe, Alta., bears out this pro-
cedure as the best for control of
wild oats. "Shallow tillage and de-
layed seeding, plus the use of fer-
tilizer and an early - maturing
grain," was the recommendation of
the station.
*
• On the station a field has been
in fallow-grain-g!'ain rotation for
38 years, yet developed a serious
wild oat problem. Sifting the wild
oat seeds the station technicians
found 70.7 bushels of wild oat seeds
per acre.
* * *
In the fall of 1949 the field was
given a shallow tilling with a one-
way disc, and in the spring of 1950
with a duckfoot cultivator and
cable weeder. Seeding was delayed
until June 2 while an adjacent area
was seeded May 8. The grain seed-
ed June 2 was practically free of
wild oats while that seeded May 8
was polluted,
By Rev. R. Barclay warren,
S.A.. B.D.
By R. Barclay Warren, B.A., B.D.
"THE TRAGEDY OF SAUL"
1 Samuel 15:17-22; 18:6-9; 31:3-4.
Memory Selection: To obey is
better than sacrifice, and to heark-
en than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel
15:22.
The tall young king to whom
God had given another heart (1
Sam. 10:9) and who had prophesied
(10:10) had a sad ending. In im-
patience at Samuel's late arrival he
assumed the office of a priest and
offered sacrifice. Then he was diso-
bedient in sparing Agag and the
best of the flocks of the Amale-
kites. His effort to lay the blame
on the people showed further weak-
ness. If the blame had really rested
on the people then it would show
weak leadership on his part. Jea-
lousy was the next sinful trait to
appear. Then carne malice and an-
ger against the youthful David. An
evil spirit front the Lord troubled
this sinful king. On occasion he
would seem to be about to revert
to the good life, When David
showed hint how he had spared his
life he said, "I have sinned—behold,
I have played the fool, and have
erred exceedingly" (26:21). But
the apparent reformation was short-
lived.
The last scenes of Saul's life are
particularly distressing. The Philis-
tines are arrayed against him. In
his plight he resorts to the witch
of : Endor. In earlier days he had
men .zealous in ridding the land of
these impostors. What an array we
have of them today: fortune tellers,
tea cup readers, palm readers, med-
iums, etc. But "should not a people
seek unto their God?" Is. 8:19.
When asked by the figure Samuel,
"Why hast,thou disquieted me, to
bring me up?" he replied: "•—
God is departed from me, and an-
swereth me no more, neither by
prophets, nor by dreams." The news
he received was evil. He had gage
too far from God to return, In
despair he fell on his own sword.
His light went out in darkness.
"Let him that thinketh he stand-
eth take heed lest he fall." 1 Cor.
10:12.
Arrival In Alaska
A bush pilot, flying a makeshift
plane that could rightly be called
a • "crate," took us to Bristol Vil-
lage. On our way in we flew over
herds of caribou and moose .
We soared over the heavily -wood-
ed mountains and then over the
flat and treeless t u n d r a, snow-
covered and glittering in the bril-
liant sun, and down to the shore
by the lashing waters of Bristol
Bay. As the heavy ground fog
• below us lifted, the pilot set us
down on a lake two miles from
the schoolhotise. It was the twenty-
third day of our journey.
The sound of an incoming plane
is rare and wonderful in the North
and on this occasion, as on every
one, all of Bristol Village came to
meet the plane. No word had been
sent ahead of our 'coming, but the
news spread through the crowd
and we heard eager cries of:
"Teachers! Teachers have conte!
We have school now!"
Around us were the smiling
friendly faces of Aleuts and Eski-
mos broad and welcome. Bill and
I were overwhelmed by the warmth
of their cordiality as we introduced
ourselves and exchanged hand-
shakes.
The fact that teachers had come
made it a gala day for the village.
Children climbed over the plane,
the men helped Bill unload, and
the women gathered together in
a circle to one side, chattering
gaily. One of them, Esther, an
Eskimo mother, walked over to
me and said timidly: "We want
you to like us here."
Mushing across two frozen lakes
and two miles of crystal white
snow, we finally carne to the
schoolhouse. It was a long white
clapboard building, something like
a covered bridge, with a front
porch along the length of it. We
had expected a one room log cabin
and were ,overcome by • thin "grand-
eur" of this school.
Thanking our drivers for tak-
ing us and our luggage to the
school, we asked them to come and
see us when we were settled. Sev-
eral children plainly wanted to
stay and one little Eskimo boy
asked hopefully: "School tomorrow
maybe?"
We told them it would take us
a few days to get the school ready,
but to drop in for a visit any time.
The next morning at seven o'clock
they were there.
The schoolrooms and teachers'
giving -quarters were all in the
same building, connected by a long
hallway.
As we stepped out on the front
porch, we flinched in the glare
of a white land. It stretched out
to the North Pole and somewhere
en the way merged with a bleached
sky, the frosty glitter broken only
by shreds of smoke creeping out
of the chimneys below, like soiled
remnants of an old fog. For a.s
long as men tibula piece mt hiories
together, Bristol Village had been
a permanent settlement, and so it
was • not an igloo town. Winding
trails laced homes together, join-
ing t w o separated clusters of
houses nestled in the snow., Dowg,
in the village, we learned that the
Eskimos lived in one group and
the Aleuts in the other. After
many centuries of sharing the Arc-
tic, the two distant cousin races
had become close neighbors in this
one spot in Alaska. -Froin "Hearth
in the Snow," by Laura Buchan
and Jerry Allen,
Precious G1: se
The study of glass may be coat. -
pared to a window which opera
backward to the most remote perms
iods of recorded history. There its,
for example, the legend of the acci-
dental discovery of glass by the!
Phoenicians, A group of Phoenicta.a.
sailors, the story goes, built a bon-
fire on the beach. Having no stonets
upon which they could rest their
cooking utensils, they used calces
of soda which they happened to
have with them. On completion of
their meal, they were amazed to
find that the soda had disappeared.
In its place was a hard shiny sub-
stance which proved to be the first
glass made by pian.
Or let us glance back into the
history of the ancient Egyptians.
In the museum at Cairo the moderns
traveller sees all the priceless pose
sessions of King Tutankhamen.
Among these is a marvellous gold.
necklace with a hundred gold pen-
dants inlai3 with turquoise, laplts
lazuli and cloisonne of glass. Be'
cause glass is so common in the
world today, it strikes one as add.
that this material should form part
of these exquisite adornments of
ancient kings, but our surprise ends
with the realization that in those
ancient times glass was so rare
that it was valued above precious
stones.
Anyone who becomes interested
in the history of glas , will be de-
lighted with many of the archaeo-
logical exhibits he will find in Egypt.
In a tomb of one of the old Pha-
raohs near Thebes, for example„
paintings on the walls show men
blowing glass in very much the
same way and with very much the
same tools still employed in glaaa
making at the present time. Stitt
preserved is a glass piece found las.
the tomb of Thutmose II, who
reigned about 1500 B.C.
Anyone who studies the old mo-
saic glass beads of the Egyptians
will find in them the designs which
served hundreds of years later to
give workmen their ideas for the
so-called "cane" patterns used fa
some of the early glass paper-
weights.
Many centuries alter, the ai't oil
glass -making spread to Venice and
Rome. In the 12th Century, glass
factories were so numerous in.
Venice that they became a fire ha-
zard to the city. As a result, they
were moved to the Island of Mu-
rano, where the secrets of glass-
makers were guaeded under penalty
of death. Glass-makers of those
days ranked with the nobility, and
a daughter of a count could marry
a glass-maker without losing caste,
At Altare, the seat of the glass-
makers' guild in the 13th Century,
glassworkers were eventually hired
out to other districts—much to the
distress of Murano. As a result,
the art spread to Bohemia, France
and England; and centuries later,
to the United States, There is no
reference to Venetian glass mann-
facture before the 13th Century,.
hough it is noteworth r ttttet Is
tt i s time St. Tviark's in Venice,
built in 1159; had mosaics throngts-
out its interior, and the Venetians
of the 13th and 14th Centuries wcr*
already complete masters of the use
of enamel.—Froin "Old Glass
Paperweights," by Evangeline H.
Bergstrom.
Eleven '""r"- lock Break
Combination hot c of f e e- colt
water dispenser is ideal for offices.
Coffee • can be taken "with" or
"without" by pressing appropriate
button. Beverages served itt sant-
Lary paper -cups.
"She's A Money"—This new Lockheed F -94-C Starfire, jet -fighter
interceptor climbs to 45,000 feet in a twinkling and zooms along
in all weather "in the 600-m.p.h. class." Its "bubble nose"
houses instruments that electronically track down enemy air,.
craft. The "almost automatic" Starfire is the first fighter plane to
, have all -rocket armament, carrying 24 rockets, 2.75 in size. Said
test pilot Tony Levier after landing, "She's a honey."
JITTER
THAT'S THE LAST TOASTED
MARSHMALLOW YOU 65T1 IP .
YOU EAT ANY MORE, YOU'Lt.
EXPLODE'/
By .Arthur Pointer