The Rural Voice, 1980-08, Page 11were made so they could get from one work area to another
easily. Trees along the trails are red, white and scotch pine,
white spruce, silver maple, cedar, Dutch elm and European
larch. The sizes of the trees vary from seedlings to white pines, a
few of which have a circumference of 44 to 45 inches.
Hunters and snowmobiles are banned from the tree farm At
one sweep, a snowmobile could ki11100 seedlings, hidden under
the winter's snow. But hikers are welcome.
The two mile trail has attracted hikers, bird watchers, school
groups and naturalist clubs. Also cross country skiers are
welcome in the winter.
FAMILY CORPORATION
The tree farm is protected by a family corporation called
ARMTREE. Each member of the family has shares and a yearly
meeting is held. Here new ideas and the year's work are
reviewed. One idea was to have fence or something to mark the
edge of the property. Lombardy poplars were planted along the
sideroad. It was also decided that the pond could be dug deeper
to help preserve the water life. This will be done this summer.
The president of the corporation is Jean Johnston,
secretary -treasurer is Stafford Johnston. The vice-president is a
daughter, Mrs. C.B. (Marg) Reed, of Dundas.
BEGINNING OF PERTH
"The history of this farm can be traced back to the beginning
of Perth County," explains Stafford.
The first settler on the farm was the grandson of the first
settler in Perth County, Andrew Seebach. His grandson, Louis
Seebach operated a saw mill and was not a farmer. The land was
all forest.
Seebach operated his mill in the winter, when the farm boys
could help him. The boys came from miles around and so
boarded in the small nine bedroom home. Neighbours can still
remember the piles of sawdust beside the concession road. In
fact, the piles were so high you could not see the house from the
concession.
There are several bridges along the trail with unusual names,
spanning several ditches. One bridge is called "Pont d'
Argent," French for the Silver Bridge.
"The French grandchildren helped put in the nuts and bolts in
the frame. It is painted silver," explains Stafford.
The Palatine Bridge is named because of the history of the
Seebach family. They came from an area in Germany called
Palatinate.
"Zweibricken is also German. It is a city in Palatinate and is
again a bit of history. It means two bridges," Stafford says.
This land has truly come full circle. From a land covered with
trees to a farm that was cleared for farming. Now the Johnstons
have replanted trees and started a tree farm of the future. And
the land can truly be given back to mother nature.
As far as farmers are concerned
BY ADRIAN VOS
Are our plants and our soils slowly and
surely poisoned from the smokestacks of
industrial areas?
More and more farmers are beginning to
ask how much acid rain and ozone pollution
is costing them year after year.
First let us examine what acid rain is and
what causes it.
The gases from the smokestacks of our
industrial plants and coal fired generating
stations contain sulfur dioxide and nitro-
gen oxide. Because they are carried by the
gases they travel a long way from their
sources. While only as short a time ago as
1976 testimoney before the Porter Com-
mission indicated the estimated distance
the pollutants were carried was 230 miles,
today it is well documented that the real
distance is measured in thousands of
miles.
Emissions from the Michigan industrial
basin deposit SO2 in ( n . ario and beyond;
Ontario's pollutants , as far as New
Brunswick; Scotland's poisons go as far as
Scandinavia, and it is suspected that the
whole industrial world contributes to SO2
Ozone is worse
than acid rain
over the polar region.
Once in the atmosphere, the SO2 and NO
are mixed with water vapors and atmo-
spheric influences, and are then converted
to acid. When these water vapors concen-
trate to fall as rain, the result is acid rain.
Nitric acid is highly corrosive, so much
so that it is used in etching of glass.
Sulfuric acid, formerly called vitriolic
acid, is the stuff used in lead batteries. It
burns skin and clothing, according to the
warning label on the car battery.
AN OXIDANT
Another pollutant resulting from our
industrial age is ozone, also an oxidant and
used extensively as a bleaching agent.
The existence of these airborne poisons
has been known for a long time. The bleak
landscape of Sudbury testifies to that. The
development of new plant varieties in
tobacco and white beans, resistant to the
poisons also shows that society knew about
the problem. The question arises why there
is such a sudden interest in acid rain when
it has been known for a long time.
A cynic might say that until the last few
years it was not known that sport fish in our
lakes, where the influential people have
their cottages would be killed as well by
acid rain.
That may be true for the media, who will
report the news as it is perceived as
important, but not entirely for government
regulatory agencies. The slow rehabil-
itation of the Sudbury area after erection of
the tall smokestacks is evidence that
governments were aware of it.
The only difference is that suddenly the
environmental ministries are getting sup-
port for their clean-up efforts.
EFFECT ON CROPS?
The question that concerns the farmers
of Western Ontario is what effects acid rain
have on the crops and thus on their income.
Professor D.P. Ormrod from the Horti-
cultural Science Department at the Univer-
sity of Guelph, did a study for the Huron
Power Plant Committee, which was com-
pleted in 1977.
This study concentrated on the effects of
ozone and found that severe damage to
white beans resulted in a severe loss of
income for growers. How high the damage
was in actual dollars was impossible to
pinpoint but the report noted that studies
in New York showed yield losses from
THE RURAL VOICE/AUGUST 1980 PG. 9