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Zurich Herald, 1955-03-03, Page 7www PLAIN NORSE SENSE.. By F. MOB) VON PIL1S With .mounting pressure be- hind the demand of our farm organizations f o r government guaranteed minimum priees of farm products, the question is being asked; "How would you do it?" Nobody will deny that farmers have a right to their fair share of the national income. Yet they labour under so many handicaps that they cannot achieve this without govern- ment intervention. In certain commodities farmers can, do the job them- selves if they are given the nec- essary legislation to establish national marketing agencies. In others the federal government -may have to take direct action. Scarcity or Abundance? Whenever the federal govern- ment has intervened in the pric.• ing of farm products so far, it was generally in the form of an offer to buy from the processors or distributors a• given corn- modity at a set price. In the case of eggs for in- stance the government is pre- pared to buy eggs at 38 cents per dozen Grade A Large plus storage and handling charges. Thegovernment will deal with the grading stations, but no pro- vision is made for a minimum price to the producer except a vague form of a "gentlemen's agreement" that the producer would not receiveless than 32 cents per dozen. If the government establishes minimum prices at the producer level to be paid by processors and distributors and to be car- ried forward into the retail mar- ket,'the result will be that not only marketing but also produc- tion will have to be controlled and in all probability, curbed to avoid the accumulation of huge surpluses which eventually would wreck the program. This would mean a policy of planned scarity in a world in which the majority of people have never seen a square meal and go to bed hungry every night of the year. It would also mean that the consumer would have to pay the higher price in the 'store and may be called upon to pay again, through his tax bill, if the government has to dispose of any "sur"pluses" at a loss. A New Approach We submit to our readers for their consideration and fordis-. cussion in their - farm meetings the following alternative. Farmers shall be free to pro- duce any product and as much of it as they want, and sell it in an uncontrolled market where it would find its price level under the good old law of supply and demand so highly "There's very little chance of you going wrong." "I knew that before I came Int" regarded by free marketeers. At the same time, however, a price would be set by govern- ment b a sed on the prices farmers have to •pay for labour, equipment, " feed, living needs etc. The difference between this guaranteed forward price and the price he actually received on the open market, would be paid in cash directly to the farmer by the government. As the intention of any such scheme would be the preserva- tion of the family farm and not the encouragement of factory like farming, government pay- ments should be restricted to a maximum number of units per family. Any farmer' producing more than the maximum num- ber of units would have to take his chances on the open market. * * �. This column welcomes criti- cism, constructive or destruc- tive, and suggestions, wise or otherwise; it will endeavour to answer any questions. Address all mail to Bob Von Pilis, Whitby, Ont. Did His Book- keeping On A. Cedar Shingle There were a number of dif- ferent ways in which a country merchant could keep his ac- counts in the days before cash registers, adding machines, loose-leaf binders, visible files, or the early ticket register sys- tem. He could tally up the chalk scores on the Wall, possibly the simplest system of all. He could run up a column of figures on a shingle, the ancestor of the visible file. He might calculate by pictograph, like the New Hampshire Yankee who got con- fused about whether the cus- tomer owed him for a cheese or a grindstone because at the time the transaction was re- corded, he forgot to draw a hole for the crank of the grindstone. But whether it was by single entry or double, by notched sticks, or by a stub pencil and scrap of paper fished from a vest pocket, the storekeeper could not escape the burden of keeping accounts of some kind; and the only good ones were those the merchant himself could understand. ' James L. Bragg used to run a general store with a lumber yard in back of it. One day a farmer wanted some cedar shingles. The quantity Bragg had on hand; as it turned out, was just what the customer wanted. "I'll take them all," he said. But. Bragg held back on the last bundle. "I couldn't sell that," he ex- plained. "It's got my store ac- counts on it." The country trader\ usually kept his accounts in great folios, full-sized sheets of heavy, white "wove" paper, folded once by the stationer to make four pages, bound in rough sheep, or in brown leather scarred by long handling, • Until steel pens were intro- duced, the merchant had to be skilled in the cutting,• slitting, and pointing of goose quills. He had his round pounce box with a perforated top, containing ground pumice, for preparing rough paper to take the ink, or for writing over erasures. His high slant -top desk was equip- ped with sand for blotting. his. penknife at hand for shaping the quill pens. Perhaps he had his own recipe for making ink. Many were handed down for - generations. - .From "The Old Country Store," by Gerald Car- son. -c SWORD UZZLE ACROSS 4. Tight hatred 1, viper 4. Staff of life 9. Coal product 12, Pronoun 12. Rent 14. odd number 15 Wondering tear 16, Paddle 17. Scotch river 10 'Discover 21. wing, 22. Pav,put 24. Spinning rod 27. Tabor 28. Rise to the feet 20. Chemical suffix 80. TOlevated railwaye 31. Owlet. 82, Serpent 43. Mach (ab.) 04. Dwarf 05 (lone be VI. Nut confection 86. vain -up 80. Spinning teen 4.0. h+ren2Rctioi 41. Struck 43 Tee the trouble 44. Unit of 'work 47. 'Motility 48, 7'antuua BO, Suppes'- 3i. Monxrel' 52. Gown 88, Secrreettttgettt '.Sunken renes Sttteb . Lilo* ** better 5. Peruse 6, Aurinte 7, Tike 8, Refuse 6. rinll(ed 10. Besides 82. Dances 11. Ruff 34. Narrow 18. Country opening 20,krinting fluid 25. Legume 21. qeparate 37.>lakeamands 22. Clean with a 23: Pinochle snorer broom 40. Perishes 23. Arctic 41. Huge wave 24. Etoek 42. Swab 25. Unfastened 48. Devoured 26. Puff up 45. Ribbed fabric 26. Avnlde 16 Merry 21. Satan 40. Conjunction erece gee Ellseiiatlere PrIIN 0,• '0• 1,.}.04Ig:' aweV elseWhere 41te 4h**e prime, • Fashion Hints O 60 0 LONG TORSO lines of France Davies' evening gown breaks into below -the -hip fulness. The skirt's five layers of nylon tulle is a mist of subtle shades of orchid and lilac screen through a top skirt of black. The silver -colored' acetate satin bodice is joined to the skirt ' in deep Harlequin diamonds. STILL SMILING-U.S, Air Forces Capt. Thomas L. Pittman smiles from his hospital bed in Winni- peg. Pittman spent three bitter» ly cold days in the wilderness after he bailed out of B-47 Strat- ojet bomber that exploded in the air, He isholding the revol- ver he shot a rabbit with, but he could not reach the rabbit because of a leg broken when the plane exploded. His Spelling Hanged This Man You would think that being unable to spell isa small thing to cost a man his liberty and perhaps his life -- but it has done so. In 1937 two , men were sent- enced to imprisonment in Scot- land because they could not spell "dentifrice." They admit- ted that they had attempted to obtain goods by fraud. One day an Edinburgh trader received an order for goods which included dentifrice. He noticed that the word fos spelt "dentiface," Now this man had been previously employed . by .another Edinburgh firm which had been defrauded of goods including dentifrice, The trader remembered that on that occasion the word had also been spelt "dentiface," So he detained the man who had brought the order and sent for the police. • During the .Presidential cam- paign in the U.S.A. in 1880 Mr. Garfield -was one of the candi- dates. Somebody tried to harm his chances • by attributing to him a letter in which the im- portation of cheap Chinese la- bour was advocated, But the letter contained words like "ecomony" and "religeously," which General Garfield, what- ever his faults, could not have perpetrated. But the man who really owed his destruction to bad spelling was the chauffeur. Allaway, who was executed for the murder of Irene Wilkins, whom he had lured to Bournemouth by a de- coy telegram and had strangled in a field. She was not the first girl to be decoyed by him; he had sent telegrams to at least two other girls on other. 0000- Bions. s But all the telegrams showed such errors as "ifs'" for if, and "plesant" for pleasant. Re was hanged in 1922, P 1 3,cned Arrows Kill Elephants Far, far from the cities of 1n- dia,'in the heavily -wooded coun- try north of the Brahmaptura, the backward Abor tribes have perfected a new method of kill- ing marauding rogue elephants. Bows and arrows, their normal weapons of offence; have proved futile. They' have perfected no method of trapping elephants, and even breech -loading guns, whose acquaintance they have lately made, are ineffective. So the Abors have made a strange and unusual comprom- ise between primitive methods and machine civilization; they fire poisoned arrows out of their rifles! Recently a rogue elephant was causing depredations among the Padam tribe, a branch of the Abors. Hunting -parties met with no success, several granaries were destroyed, and the posi- tion looked serious. Suddenly there carne news that the ele- phant had been killed by a tiny old roan with a rifle - and, in- evitably, a poisoned dart. The little man, Ogen Tayeng, had preparea carefully against such an eventuality. He had fa- shioned his arrow in the tradi- tional manner of the tribe, and prepared his poison from the roots of a plant known as Em, which had originally been brought by an ancient tribal hero "from the fields of the gods of the snowy moui:itains." In the sacred corner of the village he ground and pounded the roots, then mixed the results with the juice of another plant, Talo, the "holy creeper," which had al- legedly grown from the haver- sack of another tribal hero, Karl, after his death. Little Tayeng met his ele- phant late that afternoon. He suddenly found the animal standing in his very path, look- ing at him in no friendly man- ner. Almost before he had time to appreciate the situation, the elephant roared and charged him. Tayeng ran away, but the elephant was faster than he, and he sensed that it was gai,7ing. In .a despel ate attempt to save himself, he shot at it, from point-blank range. At once the elephant crumpled, but Tayeng was not disposed to wait and see what has happened; he went on running. When he heard no more noise, he retra' •ed his steps, and found a dead ele- phant QUICK COMEBACK The guest speaker was an hour late and the college audi- ence was growing restless. The chairman, hoping to salvage the evening, whispered to Professor Ellsworth, famed for his wit, to get up and say a few words. The professor stepped up to the platform, and by way of breaking the ice he remarked, "I've just been asked by the chairman to conte up here and say something funny" At this point, a student heck- ler in the back of the hall called out, "You'll tell us when you say it, won't you?" Professor Ellsworth, deadpan but deadly riposted, "I'll tell yen, The others will knelt," Ropatus iii1NG�R . H C4nd:alty e Ctra,rla.e Who says we don't get old- fashioned winters any more? If by that we mean cold then last week was old-fashioned enough for most of us. And much older here than in Toronto. Friday night when it was four above in Toronto it was fourteen be- low right here. However, it wasn't so hard to heat the house as it had been the week before with the wind blowing. But is the coal -bin ever look- ing sick -- and we thought we had more than enough coal to last out the winter. Away goes another fifty dollars. But we still count our blessings . we are not snow -ed in and there hasn't been one morning that the car refused to start. Nor have we had any .plants or plumbing frozen. The hens' ob- jected to the cold weather but the cows didn't mind it at all. One morning when it was twelve below Partner thought he hadn't better turn the cows out at all. So he carried water to them in the stable. Some of them just sniffed at the water and bawled to be let out. Next morning it was up to zero so out they went. When I went out for the mail the cows were all around the water -trough. When I came back they were racing around in the front field. A little gate which Partner had forgotten to• close was their in- vitation to freedom. That was something new for Partner - forgetting to close a gate. Any- way I went down, to the barn to tell him what Was happen- ing and together we managed to get the cows in before they had a chance to wander too far away.. But chasing cows over snow-covered fields wasn't ex- actly our idea of winter sport. Another problem last week was socks,- oversocks, to wear inside rubber boots. A few weeks ago I brought home heavy nylon socks for Partner, guaranteed to last without darning for ninety days. Wonderful! I was just thinking of putting my darning things for the winter when Partner said -"I can't • wear these socks -they don't absorb moisture at all. They must surely be ..hard on the feet." So I brought home more socks -- one pair plain knit, , the other in a double check pattern. The check socks had no give to them at all and were hard to get on and off; the others looked as if they would be in holes inside of a week. "Look," I said to Part- ner, "I'll soon knit you a pair if you will wear them -but you have always said you couldn't stand hand -knitted socks." (Partner has the kind of feet that could make a chiropodist rich.) However, he evidently thought I was offering him the lesser of two evils in the way of socks so I was given permis- sion to go ahead. What I did was to knit new feet -- with double heels -- on to old legs. In that way I had a pair of socks ready the next day. Since then -no complaints! Socks done I started knitting a little suit for Dave. The pan- ties are made in two pieces, shaped at the back. A few min- utes ago I found I had made therm so the seams didn't match. That always hers! Maybe it 1W because I read as I knit, at' perhaps it was the result et knitting at midnight. Not that I wanted to but one night the wind got around to the otitis and the kitchen fire simple would not draw. I couldn't leave it because of the dange of coal -gas and I couldn't let it go out because it was stip ten below. So I sat up and coaxed the fire along until ft was safe to leave it, The furn- ace was burning all right but it doesn't heat the back of the house. Yesterday Bob and Joy came up to see how we had put in the week. They brought some friends along with them, two little boys -two and three and a half. The boys had never been on a farm before and to therm the cows were reindeer, and the calves baby reindeer. Shades of Christmas! They wanted to catch some ofthe hens and could not understand why they would not stand still to be pet- ted. The mother came from Vancouver and had never set foot on a farm either. Her hus- band has lived between Acton and Erin so he knew something about the country. Funny thing, to live in a farming country and know nothing about farming. Whereas we who live on a farm sometimes know too much -- if you know what I mean. Joy took her friends a1I over the house. Such exclamations "So many rooms -and the size of them!" I nodded. "Yes, that's what I say too!" I ans- wered, but with rather a dif- ferent meaning. Of course I would hate to be cooped up in small rooms -but fewer rooms, that's something else again. A small house these days isn't like a small house twenty years ago. With a basement eight feet high under the whole house one can do with fewer rooms. Stor- age space in the basement and plenty, of cupboard room up- stairs. What more could anyone want? I wonder ; . . cleaning up my desk this morning I came across this hastily scribbled bit of wis- dom ---but I don't know where the quotation comes from. Here it is. "Many of us might come closer to . having what we want if we knew what we wanted. Se very Often we soon tire of what we thought we wanted." And who can deny the truth of that statement? MERRY MENAGERIE "Owes!" • Upsidedown to Prevent Peeling PLENTY OF ,MAIL --Sen. W. Stuart Symington, left, points to then glont post card he received from the Parkway Station letter carriers in Kansas City, Mo, Made of plywood, the card urge% the senator's support for the postal employes' pay raise, it took $12:80 in stamps to mall the card from Missouri to Washington,,