The Rural Voice, 1977-12, Page 7A Matter of Principal
by J. Carl Hemingway
I'm confused!
I seem to forget easy and I think I must be getting old and
therefore my memory is failing. It seems to be that as the years
go by we seem to blame our forgetfulness on the passing of
years.
Then I hear everybody saying what a terrib!t- vear we have had
with the weather. First it was so very dry during the spring and
early summer. Later, it was the awful wet weather we had during
August, and September.
I started farming on my own the spring of 1940. That was a wet
year. Seeding was bad and I ended up with an excellent field of
buckwheat for it got too late to plant any more mixed grain. We
managed to get it cut, after three attempts about the middle of
October, finally with the pea harvester. They tell us this year was
worse but not by much.
A couple of years later I helped a neighbour fill a silo. We had
to cut the corn with a hoe. It was too wet to cut it with the
horse-drawn corn binder. He loaded the wagons, horse drawn,
by hand. There were a few places we had to carry the corn across
several rows as the ground was too soft for the horses to pull the
wagons. There weren't any forage hkrvesters and we couldn't
have used them anyway.
On the other hand. I'll make it easier for you to remember, in
19701 sold a few ton (short) which net me $31.50 after drying, no
hauling charge.
The lowest I've heard this year is a net of $46. after paying
dr% ing and hauling.
Why are we so surprised this year?
Maybe my memory isn't as bad as I was afraid it was.
1 also remember that an excellent 100 acre farm nearby sold, in
the late thirties, on the basis of $42. per acre -nothing for a
comparatively new house and a good bank farm.-
That
arm-That was "depression" price.
However there have been other "depressions". Don't you
remember around 1960 the price of hogs, dressed, dropped to
under $20 per cent? The government set a floor price of $23.65
per cwt and in a couple of years the government had the storages
full of -pork that they had bought off the market to hold the price.
It eventually ended up as very good canned Kam and was
peddled all over the world. and much of it went free to have-not
countries.
If it has happened before why are we so sure it can't happen
again?
Strange -
I've keen remembering about conditions on the farm when
Remembrance Day inspired me to remember the two World
Wars and the division that now is a serious Canadian problem.
1 was too young for the First World War and too old for the
Second but I do remember.
remember. rather vaguely. about the controversey over
"conscription" in the First World War and the strong opposition
of Quebec but the English speaking part of Canada made it
possible fo; the government to enforce it.
The sante %vas true in the Second War. Quebec was a strongly
opposed.
Why is it then that the leader of the French government is so
eager to heap honours on that part of Canada which was so
ung: filling to help the "Motherland" in its time of need? Why is it
that out French Canadians are so urgently striving to retain and
rebuild their French heritage and ties with France now when
they were only slightly concerned about Germany taking over
their homeland a few short years ago?
1 have my own conclusions and I sincerely hope I'm right.
I think the oppositibn to the War effort from Quebec in the two
wars was led by a very vocal radical minority then and I think this
is true to -day.
I was amazed to hear a Separatist speaker recently talk about
French-Canadians being forced to fight in two British Wars.
Surely they were much more French Wars than British,
Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and United States (all
English speaking) wars.
Do the people of France not remember the English speaking
troops coming into their towns and freeing them of Hitler's
forces?
I'm sure my memory won't improve in the coming years but I
hope it never gets that bad and I think there are a great many
French-Canadians and French in France whose memory is as
good as mine.
I certainly hope so.
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THE RURAL VOICE/DECEMRFR 1077 "'