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The Seaforth News, 1958-08-14, Page 3NO 0.1.Sagl y.,t • 3�'N��a b s d9SO . ,.,..7.711111:7_, dsi... ..„ -r ' 4r 43 / g 0 _07 • V aO I21d.L 7 V AW S dSV t. Snails '°lugged Up Water Supply It was so hot that August that everyone rushed for glasses of water, But as the perspiring citizens of Chicago turned one their taps, they also turned pale, and even slightly green, for each glassthea was filled contained -live snails! Complaints poured in to the city waterworks: But even there they were having trouble. The snails, having entered the mains from the reservoir, were clogging the pumps and blocking the ilters. Only by collecting them in their millions and carrying thein away by the cartload did the staff manage eventually to pre- vent Chicago's water supplies from being completely cut off. It was all very disconcerting, though of course a plague of snails in a fresh water reservoir was not entirely unheard of. What made the event so unusual that year - 1898 - was the fact that these tiny snails were aliens They didn't really belong t, America at all, but were a kind quite common in Europe, and -their sudden appearance via the kitchen taps of Chicago was the culmination of an invasion which bad begun about 20 years before. Where and -how this European snail had arrived in America no one really knows. They are thought to have landed some- where along the banks of the St. Lawrence river some time before 1880, having presumably crossed the Atlantic in a ship's cargo. Once established, the snails moved slowly but relentlessly along rivers and canals, coloniz- ing them as they went, until by 1888 they had reached the Great Lakes. In another 10 years the breed had established itself in its millions in every one of these great stretches of water. This European snail is but one of no fewer than 45 foreign snails and slugs that have •eutered and established themselves in the United States in the past hund- red years. Among snail globe trotters, one does stand out as the undisputed champion, having travelled over half -way round the world' in the last century and a half and be- come firmly established in a dozen or more countries and numerous islands. It is the giant African snail, the largest snail in the world, with a shell six inches in length. It's appetite corresponds to its size, and like all snails it seems to take a perverse delight in always choos- Ing for its supper the gardener's most prized crops. Originally confined to the Af- rican mainland and th the island of Madagascar, in 1847 the snail reached India, via an enthusiastic snail expert who collected speci- mens from Madagascar and re- leased them in the gardens of the Bengal Asiatic Society in Calcutta. By 1939 the snail had crawled" across southern Asia and had succeeded in bridging the sea barriers to colonize the majority of the islands of the East Indies. An American army sergeant, a member of a World War II lib- eration force on a Pacific island, was driving a jeep along a wind- • ing jungle road one night when, sounding a bend he saw a stretch of road apparently strewn with large stones. Before he could apply the brakes'he was bumping over them. They were strange "stones", for as his wheels came in contact with them they crunched like eggs, and the jeep slithered off the road in an uncontrollable skid, plunging -into the bordering jungle. Shaken, the sergeant eased himself out of the jeep and push- ed his way - back through the tangled vegetation to the road. To his amazement he found a great army of giant snails emerg- ing from the jungle on one side of the road and disappearing into the undergrowth of the other, Subsequent investigations re- vealed how evealed'how the snails had come to these isolated Mariana Islands, some 1,500 miles to the east of the Philippines. During their occupation of the islands the Japanese had intro- duced them for food in about 1940. They were very fond of them stewed, but the islanders could not be persuaded to eat them and so insufficient were caught to keep the numbers down. Within five years the islands were overrun. The most recent step taken by the giant snail on its rather re- markable world tour is the big- gest. A few years after the war isolated colonies appeared in California. I-Iow did they cross the several thousand miles of ocean separating the Mariana Islands from America? The most likely explanation is that they, or more probably their eggs, which would be less easily de- tected, came over attached to Army vehicles returning from the islands. It is believed and hoped that the American climate will prove unsuitable for large scale multi- plication, but the American Department of Agricluture is keeping a very close watch, WINE WITH A I{ICK Wong Yan, of Hong Kong, learned from a friend that the finest thing in the world, for rheumatism is "snake wine." So he bought himself a live adder and a bottle of wine According to the formula the snake was to be killed and placed in the wine. After eight days the wine was to be taken in small doses. Wong was in hospital the next day getting free treatment for his rheumatism - plus free treatment for snake bite. BRAVE GIRL - Tickling a baby porcupine isn't the way most people would like to spend their time at the zoo. But Barbara Calvert, 21, porcupine keeper at the Children's Zoo in London, England, likes to play with,Bongo. She's wearing gloves, though. CROSSWtS RD PUZZLE ACROSS 2. Slender 1 Serpent woman 4. Groat full 2. Protected speed 4 Occupied 7. Amounts of 5. Vine medicine 6. Cumulative 12 Soft clam wager 18 r -Rimming- 7. nine bird 14. Seed 10 Blatt (mile.) 16 Impuleeto set [hinge on fire. 18. Small spar 20 Flaunt 21 Wearing. shoes 23 Mountain lotto 28 intimidate 20. Truck 28, Ila3Itat 20. Tray for hold Ing type 82. O3plated.. 33 Pat 34 Wliar yea '36 Youngster 30 Require 38, Pain 41. Pack 42. Statement which needs nu proof 43. Disputed 47, Globe 48. 1n rhe back 49. Period 60. Custom 6 L 7 gala sidelong glances 62. Wheel part 6:1. ii1. Indian DOWN 4. Collect 8. Port uttese• 80 obtained city 31. Sleeveless 8. heavenly garment body 82. Assts[ p 10, priestiest Jewishhigh ' 4. Metallic alloy 11. .Pad 37. Dawn goddess 1Paddle ' 3. Steed 29 Pulse guar 3. Live coal 23. Attempt 1. Chief actor 23. Aware 8First man 24. Poem 4. w Potential lte 25 Ml 4. Ptentia es 37, , ,gain metal Ory, ,,alt 39, alt aIitne 6 aur s 46. Silkworm 11111111mma° al 2P.Rii lirPLIIIIimo e '' 'io$®■®s"'`J®u®®■ ®®®®®*:e•••i ®■ ®®■!tw film, •l®®.®®tis' •-••••4 ®:stili ®®®►'"i®alt0 gl.1®,�®ii®r til®® llial hirm®®ar_®®® 50 '®® immisimmeolin Answer e,sewhere on this page. THE CORN IS LEAN - Vast stretches of mud, interspersed with ankle-deep pools of water, add to the desolate look of rows of corn in Topeka, Kan. Heavy rainfall has threatened what was expected to be a bumper crop of wheat,in the state, and the showers haven't done the local corn any good, either. "Save our family farms!" "Save our cities! -You are hearing both these pleas with increasing frequency. The situations which prompt the pleas have presented Americans with one of the great challenges of this era: to , find practical means for keeping rural and ur- ban people moving forward in step and to achieve fully their differing but related potentiali- ties. Although too often considered as entirely `separate, some of the chief problems of farm and city have sprouted from one root: mechanization. Through mechanization the family farm has been forced to grow from a small operation to a big- one, Machinery costs mon- ey, oney, and only sizable volume will support such investment. For better or for worse, those farm- ers who could not afford such expansion have gone out of busi- ness or turned to jobs off the farm for supplementary income. Through a different phase of mechanization ' almost all fami- lies everywhere have acquired automobiles, and many of those previously confined by business to city dwellings now commute from suburbs to their jobs in town -leaving some cities mere shells of their former selves and bringing into existence a new type of community called su- burbia, where town and country overlap. * * The revolutionary change in. farm methods and the sudden change in patterns of living for industrial workers have rend- ered many long -held patterns of thinking concerning both rural and urban affairs out of date These old patterns of thinking can hardly be superseded by the necessary fresh approaches until more cohesive effort is made to consider these farm and city problems in ,relation to each other - all the way from the grass roots to the federal level -rather than continuing to work at them separately in piece -meal fashion. Farm and city people are, after all, economically inter- dependent. Such things as a commission on country life, which has been proposed in a bill now before Congress, and the possibility of creating a new urban affairs Cabinet post may be steps in the. right` direction insofar as they focus attention on the respec- tive needs of people in the coun- try and; people in the cit'es. '• But much more is needed if spch well-intentioned functions as these are to avoid sometimes pulling in opposite directions. And wouldn't more grass-roots action by the people directly concerned be preferable to ex- panding bureaucracy? ■ * • There are some occasional in- dications that the direct citizen approach is gaining in appeal and effectiveness. Consider, for example, such m things as National Fai-City Week, being celebrated this year for the fourth time Nov. 21-27. Although approved by the Pres- ident of the United States; the Prime Minister of Canada, and the American Congress, this is unofficial and wholly grass roots in nature, writes the Farm Edit- or of The Christian Science Mon- itor. Farm -City Week is sponsored by some 150 national organiza- tions interested in rural -urban relations, with Kiwanis Inter- nationaI acting as the coordina- ting agency. It is a non-profit venture with one aim: "To bring about better understanding be- tween rural and urban people." Publicity stresses that the spe- cial week dramatizes an effort which continues, all through the year. Observances of the weekin- clude farm -industry tours, far - Mer and businessman luncheons, dinners, and banqu °s, exchanges of farm and city jobs, etc. Last year some 6,000 American and Canadian communities made their own plans and carried through their own programs, tailored to the interests and needs of their own people. The over-all effectiveness of Farm - City Week is best attested by the fact that each year more com- munities are joining the cele- bration. To 'what extent such a program contributes toward the general upbuilding of prosperity in city and country would be difficult to document at this point. But some encouraging results of such efforts are on record. * * . In one instance an awakened citizenry helped a town to hold its farming trade, which had threatened to slip away to an- other community. And from nu- merous regions come reports that point efforts by farm and town people are attracting new indus- tries to declining farm areas to provide new jobs and renewed prosperity for both farmers and the towns. In some cases a small measure of federal assistance has accel- erated these developments -but local people have provided most of the funds, leadership, and momentum that carried the pro- jects to 'success. Any discussion of such mam- moth problems in one brief' column tends to oversimplify a situation that actually is a mass of complexities. It is not intend- ed. to imply that joint action by farm and city groups could solve all the problems of both, nor that such action could be sub- stituted for effective federal pro- grams. The purpose of this column is rather, first, to point out that in some places cooperation between farmers and townspeople has helped to save farms and to build a town's prosperity; and, second, to raise the question: Why isn't this pattern tried more often? * * * Poultry live under a caste sys- tem, even as humans do, says Dr. Paul B. Siegel poultry sci- entist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute Agricultural Station. Poultrymen call this system "the peck order," which, according to a VPI Extension Service News report on Dr. Siegel's experi- mentation, includes the follow- ing feathered characters: * * * "The loud -mouthed b u 11 y rooster who doesn't do much of anything constructive and who tries to make sure no one else will either; the quiet authorita- tive type who doesn't need to assert himself -he's boss and he knows it; the chittery chattery type who tries to stay in the good graces of the powers -that - be, sidling up with flattery and sweet clucks; the tattle -tale gas - sip whose own feathers aren't too clean; and the cowed bird with missing feathers. , , ." 4. * * By allowing the peck .order to have its way and the flock to organize itself during its grow- ing season, the poultryman can lessen the effects of "social ten. sion" on egg production, says Dr. Siegel. He has found also ,that the shy bird, too brow- beaten to fight for food and wa- ter, can often do as well as the others when given quarters away from the bullies. THINK IT OVER What lies behind you and what lies before you are tiny matters compared with what lies within you, Upsidedown to Prevent Peeking V35' N /M041.522337 3.517 tr 3a' b` 8 W O 0 H 3 v S3 0, a 0 O J 8 2Y V 0 7 /7 A O t/ V 3500 UNDAY SCIlOOl LESSON By Rev. R. Barclay Warren B.A.; B.D Guarding Our Freedoms Amos 7:10-17; Galatians 5:1, 13-18, 25. Memory Selection: If ye con- tinue in my word, then are yo my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free John 8:30. We on this side of the iron curtain do not sufficiently ap- preciate our freedom. This is seen at election time when so many people fail to exercise their franchise. Freedom of speech and free- dom of religion are two of our most cherished freedoms. Amos, a prophet of the tribe of Judah exercised both of them in his clay. He was a herdsman and gatherer of sycomore fruit when God called him to take a mes- sage to Israel, He predicted that King Jeroboam would be slain and Israel would be led away captive from their own land. The first interference came, as it often does today, from within the religious circle. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, reported the message to King Jeroboam. Then he took it upon himself to bid Amos to go back to Judah from whence he came, and prophesy. no more at Bethel, the site of the king's chapel and court. Then'. - Amos pronounced a message'' from God to Amaziah, saying, "Thy wife shall be a harlot in the city, and thy suns and thy daughters shall fall be the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into capitivity of thin land." It is dangerous to interfere with God's messenger. The ad- vice offered by Garnaliel when Israel was persecuting the apos- tles is good today. "Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God." Acts 5.38,39. In the latter part of the les- son Paul is speaking of the li- berty wherewith Christ has made us free. He warns against returning to the bondage of the ceremonial law. This liberty is not license tee ?i?'; It is freedom irom the sinful lusts of the ioC' L by faith in Jesus Christ; freedom to love and serve our fellowmen. The freedom we desire for ourselves we should readily ac- cord to others. CROWNED CRANE - An African Crowned Crane sits for a portrait at Crandon Park Zoo. Its fine feathers would make any hat -conscious female envious. WHILE THE SUN SHINES - The old adage about making hay seems to have been followed in earnest on the farm of Bob Perry. The fort -like construction consists of 7,000 bales of alfalfa.. Perry has 11,000 more bales stored in a shed. But what it will all add up to in The end definitely ain't hay.