4—Lancaster Farming, Friday, May 24, 1957
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Lancaster County’s Own Farm Weekly Newspaper
Established November 4, 1955
Published every Friday by
OCTORARO NEWSPAPERS
Quarryville, Pa. Phone STerling 6-2132
Lancaster Phone Express 4-3047
Alfred C. Alspach
Robert E. Best...
Robert G. Campbell
Robert J. Wiggins
Subscription Rates: $2.00 Per Year
Three Years $5.00; 50 Per Copy
Entered as Second-Class matter at the Post Office,
Quarryville, Pa., under Act of March 3, 1879
Some Win - Some Lose
Last week we had the pleasure of attending a con
vention of newspaper farm editors in Washington, D.C.
Editors from all over the country attended the meeting.
It was amusing in a way to listen to them and see
how one man’s meat is another poison. Take feeder cattle
for example.
The fellows from the feeder cattle producing coun
try were all smiles and happy about how the market had
picked up and had many tales of how well producers in
their areas were doing.
But listen to the cries of woe from the feeder cattle
buying areas! How, they say, can a feeder make a profit
using such high priced cattle?
This proves a point that is often overlooked when
one thinks of American agriculture. In a country so vast
as this, when one phase of farming for one group is good,
often it is at the expense of another.
We all remember when the big butter-oleo fight was
on. The dairymen were losing a market. They were losing
money. But at the same time, in the South, the cotton
producer was gaininjg a market for his seed which is made
into oil for the spread. His income was going to be raised.
It looks like another of these paradoxes is shaping
up right now in the red meat-poultry industries.
Congress is considering a bill for a national check
off on red meat for promotion and advertising. If this bill
is passed, how long will it be until the poultry producers
feel that this is necessary for their industry?
From our standpoint, we fail to see much gain
irom any such government sponsored program.
In the first place, money passing through Washing
ton, D.C., seems to have developed a habit of sticking there.
Administrative costs of handling funds in government
sometimes become astronomical in the process of protect
ing the taxpayer from misuse of these funds.
' Furthermore we have a history of repeats and re
peals in government programs. If this red meat check-off
is inaugurated, who will be next? The wool growers, the
gotten growers, the poultrymen, or perhaps the turnip
green producers?
; We an see the letterhead now: Batton, Barton, Dur
stin, Osborn & Uncle Sam, Advertising.
! And perhaps the biggest reason is that there is now
anorganization, farmer supported on a voluntary basis, that
is doing a good job in the same field that the government
proposed to invade.
It is the National Live Stock and Meat Board in
Chicago. Most of-the .marketing" cooperatives, the farm or
ganizations, and the allied meat industries have represen
tatives on the board of directors of the organization.
One of the members of the Board, the packer sup
ported American Meat Institute, has carried on a highly
successful educational advertising campaign promoting the
use of all red meats.
We believe that farmers should take a hand in the
promotion of their products, but we believe that that hand
should not be tied to Washington.
For a Well Done Job
Our Lancaster County Agent Max M. mith was
honored this week by being presented a distinguished serv
ile award by the Department of Agriculture.
-I The award is being given for his work in the 4-H
slub program and with the baby beef program in par
ticular.
So we take this opportunity to add our congratula
tions ‘to him. Keep those purple banners coming into
Lancaster County.
STAFF
Publisher
Editor
Advertising. Director
Circulation Director
BY JACK REICHABD
50 YEARS AGO (1907) -
The pealing of the farm dinner
bell, rung just after midnight by
a collie dog, saved the family of
William Beattie, a farmer near
Oxford, Pa., from burning to
death. -
The house and its furnishings
were completely destroyed.
The fire started about midnight
in one of the back rooms in the
frame dwelling. The dogs immedi
ately began barking and tried to
rouse the family, but no attention
was paid to them Finally the col
lie, which had been trained to
ung the bell in calling the men
in from the fields at mealtime,
grasped the cord and kept ring
ing the bell, arousing the Beattie
family and their neighbors
NO ICE CREAM
ON SUNDAYS?
Nothing in the history of Lan
caster City, outside of politics,
stirred up more interest through
out the county in general than a
crusade of the Federtion of
Churches in an attempt to enforce
a rigid observance of the Sab
bath Day laws, a half century ago
Notice had been given that effec
tive June 1, 1907, anyope violat-,
mg these laws would be prosecut
ed. The war was apparently di
rected against cigar, ice cream
and soda water retailers. The
dealers threatened to fight the
federation and it looked like live
ly times ahead
When an elderly couple walk
ed into the Erie, Pa. office of
Clerk of Courts Miller that Satur
day, back in May, 1907, the offi
cial instinctively scented romance
His mtution proved right when
the woman gave her name as
Mary E. Starks after her com
panion had given his as Lewis E.
Starks, both gave their age as 62
years.
Clerk Miller’s records showed
that they had been married to
one another, and had been divorc
ed in the local court April 2,
1883, twenty-four years before.
But Staiks had renewed his
acquaintance with his former wife
and declared he was marrying
her again.
FARMER BLOWN TO
BITS BY DYNAMITE
A news dispatch out of In
diana, 50 years ago this week,
told of a fanner in that state who
stubbed his toe in crawling
through or over a barbed wire
fence with a stick of dynammte
which he was planning to blast
out a stump, with the result that
not enough of his physical ana
tomy could be assembled to just
ify the holding of a funeral.
A Plymouth Rock hen owned,
by an eastern fancier, which was
brought up to production of 251
eggs during sr period of a year,
was given a hot mash of ground
wheat, oats and barley in the
morning, with cracklings of meat
meal, and in the evening all the
wheat she would eat up clean.
The owner declared he never fed
corn to his chickens.
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Investigations conducted by the
federal department of agricul
ture, 'a half century ago, led it to
classify the skunk a friend of the
farmer rather than one of his
enemies. It was found that the
skunk consumed large numbers
of grasshoppers, crickets and oth
er insects and should not be ex
terminated, but protected.
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An expert writer on farm life,
50 years ago, had this to say.
“The farther the farm home is
removed from the condition of a
mere roosting place, where folks
just eat and sleep, the nearer it
comes to performing its mission
as a saving and uplifting force in
the life of the community, the
state and the nation”.
- This Week*
Lancaster Farming
25 Years Ago
Back in 1932 it was estimated
that-$4,500,000 worth of gold lay
within the city limits of Colorado
Springs, with officials of the Gol
den Cycle Mill and residents of
the city anxious to find some one
who would take the huge fortune
away.
Unguarded, the vast mountain
ol gold, about four city blocks
long, two blocks wide and 100 feet
high m places, had accumulated
during a period of 25 years at the
rate of $150,000 a year.
On windy days the lawns and
carpets'were covered with gold
dust, and people had to dust the
powdery metal off their- clothes.
But the catch to the give-away
was that the cost of sifting the
gold from the rest of the residue
was found to amount to twice
what the metal was worth.
UNDERTAKERS MAKE
NEWS IN KANSAS
In Topeka, Kas, a busybody,
who saw a suspicious looking box
being cared into a house, notified
Joe Deimler, special liquor in
vestigation, that moonshiners had
moved mo town. Deimler rounded
up a squad of policemen and
made a raid on the place.
The findings- An undertakers’
convention was in progress in the
building. The suspicious box con
tained a sample casket.
Beckfrennil Scripture: Genesis 28:1«
DeVotional Btadlnr: Isaiah 53:6-13.
Man of Peace
Lesson for May 26, 1957
IN a hospital for the ihsane, the pa
tients may think the doctors-are
crazy. In a land of three-legged men,
a man with only two legs would look
deformed. Maybe that is why in the
world today -people who -speak -a
good word for Peace are looked on
as somewhat “touched in the head.”
This is a warring world. It is a fact
that the heathen
ancestors of»mogt
readers of this
column followed
a religion in which
heaven was
thought to be •
place where fight
ing went on all
day and drinking
all night. But
north-Europeans ® r * Foreman
are not the 'only fighters of the
world. Wars and fights, large and
small, have been going on in all
parts of the world since cave-man
times. This Twentieth Century is
the bloodiest of all, with fewer
wars than formerly, but far more
serious ones.
Surrender
Isaac, second son of Abraham,
is known as a man of peace But
he must have seemed to be a
rather odd man, around Gerar
where he lived. He did not seem
quite normal. He was willing, even
eager, to make peace; but what
lessons he endured in the makmg
of peace? In the famous story* of
the Wells of Gerar, which is in our
Scripture this week, we see Isaac
giving up his comforts, his profits
and even his rights, in order to
keep peace He moved farther and
farther into the wilderness; he got
no return on all the labor put in on
the wells; and he actually gave up*
what he had a perfect right to keep
—the wells themselves. It is very
likely that a man or a nation that
is going to stay at peace with the
rest of the world, will, like Isaac
have to surrender some comforts,
some profits, even some rights. A
nation, or an individual, unwilling
to-makeany-concessions, yield any.
points or 1 " their profits, if
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DRY FORCES IN
SESSION AT LANCASTER
Thousands of persons from
every walk in life packed Lan
caster’s Convention Hall, 25 years
ago this week, when the Allied
Force of Probition concluded a
two days’ get-to-gether in thia
city.
F C. Beckwith, of the Hamilton
Watch Co. presided. Rev. J H.
Musselman offered prayer and
group singing was led by Ira
Drum^i
Dr. Daniely Poling and the
Hon Ira Laudnth were the speak
ers.
Dr Poling declared that since
the campaign had opened more
than one and one-half million
persons had been enrolled, includ
ing a half million young people. -
At the concluding session, the
Hon. John A. McSparran, State
Secretary of Agriculture, was
named chairman to„head the Al
lied Dry Forces in Lancaster
County.
Twenty-five years ago this week
Miss Helen Mutcher, sixteen, of
Dillersville, upper Lancaster
County, was almost instantly kill
ed when struck hy a hit and run
driver while, she and two girl
companions were walking along
the Harrisburg pike to their
'homes.
Tossed approximately 25 feet
by the impact, the girl was pick
ed up by a passing motorist, who
conveyed her to Lancaster’s St.
"Joseph Hospital, where attend
ants pronounced her dead.
Those witnessing the tragedy
declared the car was traveling at
an excessive rate of speed and
swerved off the concrete and hit
Miss Mutcher.
headed for a fight And the fight
will cost more than what they
fought to keep.
Sons of God
-Nevertheless, peacemakers shall
be called sons of God So Jesus
tells us; let It be noted that he
said peacemakers, not peace-wish
ers, peace-pralsers. This means
that. peacemakers' are like God,
they belong to his family! It means
that the peacemaker is in line with
the purposes of God. Consider
Isaac again. What became of all
the nations whose battles reddened,
the earth, whose wars were the big
news, whose generals were famous
men, whose conquests made his
tory? The nations of that day ara
now dead, so dead that until re
cently—we know better now—there
Were some who thought the Bible’s
references to them musfbe fiction.
Only university > professors know
about the Girgashites, the Phili
stines and all the rest, and they
don’t much care. But what became
of Isaac? His name is immortal;
the family descended from him 'is
found everywhere in the world.
The sons of Isaac are the most
indestructible folk of history. .When
God sent his Son into the world.
It .was to the sons of Isaac that he
first came, not to the children of
the Philistines.
Witness of History
Sometimes the .most peaceful
men or nations are forced to fight.
But the truly great are not those
who keep the fight going oirfor years
and years, but those-who bind up
the wounds they have made. Ger
many, at the time these lines are
being written, shows -an example.
That nation was conquered by
America and Eussia, along with
other nations. Today America and
Eussia are the two principal pow
ers occupying Germany with their
armies. But the part controlled by
Eussia is being systematically bled.
The great Eussian war memorial
in east Berlin is lined with inscrip
tions (quoted from Stalin) insulting
the German people; most promi
nent in East Berlin are great
ruined _ empty buildings. In the
west zone, controlled by the United
States, there is comparative pros
perity; this country is devoting im
mense sums to the upbuilding cf
our former enemies; most promi
nent in west Berlin is the rising
nefr city built on the nuns of the
old. It cannot be said that Germans
love to be occupied by foreign
armies. But they know the vast
difference between a former ene
my who turns as quickly as possible
to the ways of peace, and an ene
my that never knows the war is
over.
(Baud on outline* oopyrlthUd by tb#
Division of Christian Education, Na<
VMM ■•ITlCO.)
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