3 "'VlMf't'r i "hi *ft yvn >r ir I *?' rr | AlO-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 6, 1997 OPINION Learning From History To find bits of history about farm life is most enjoyable. This week we came across Volume 4 of the children's encyclopedia, The Book of Knowledge, with copyrights of 1874 to 1918byThe Grolier Society in New York and The Educational Book Co. in London. In a section entitled “The World’s Bread & Butter,” we found pictures of 30-mule teams pulling reapers and threshing machines, roller mills to make flour, dough mixing machines, and bread ovens. To go with the bread, of course you need butter. And children should know “where the butter comes from.”So, a long line of cows is shown in tie stalls with eight milkers, (they look like men but the text says the farmer’s daughters often did this work) accomplishing the job by hand. (See page A 28.) The cutline says, “After bread comes butter, which we get from the milk of the cow. This picture shows the interior of a model dairy bam which holds fifty cows. Every effort is made to keep the milk clean. The bam is light, the floor is of cement, which is kept clean by a hose, the cows are brushed and washed every day, and the men wear special suits of white duck which are put on at milking time and kept for that work only.” Of course, butter chums, and butter molds and prints are also shown. And a detailed expose’ on how you get butter from milk is given so each child reading this encyclopedia will have had full knowledge of the process. “But if we have bread on the table, there must be butter on it too,” the text says. “How is that to be had? A glass of milk does not seem much like butter for use with bread, but the butter is in the milk. “The milk is full of the tiniest parcels of fat. The fat is not float ing about in a mass in the milk. It is in a great many tiny globules, and each globule is neatly packed up in the tiniest, thinnest skin or membrane. “When the milk is churned, it is so violently knocked about that the tiny skins holding the fat break. The fat floats out, and the churning causes all the little drops of fat to become joined together. That mass of fat after proper treatment, becomes the butter that we eat." Today, we are afraid to talk about fat in milk except in the negative. Whole milk is 95 percent fat free. But with the big run on two percent, one percent, and skim milk, we have sacrificed the good taste of milk on the alter of diet fads. No wonder our promotion dollars have such a hard time to keep consumers com ing back to the milk fountain. We could double consumption in ten days if every quart of milk tasted as good as it does, cold and delicious, right out of the bulk tank on the farm. And if like 100 years ago, we could get honest commentary about modem farming operations in children’s encyclopedias, society would grow up to appreciate the blessings we have because of an abundant food supply. Editor, The problem we had with our fence controller is that it needed to be located remotely from our farmhouse. Yet many evenings I wanted to save the time it took to walk over to it to make sure the lit tle flasher or the meter was show ing proper operation. I built the in expensive neon fence indicator for a bit over a dollar, using scrap ma terial that will be found on any farm. We placed this in a field oppo site our kitchen window on a fence over 300 feet away, and it shows up bright and clear with a flash every other second. Best yet, un like the commercial units, it draws so little power that it can even be used with battery powered or solar fence chargers. The only purchased materials were a small neon “pig-tail” bulb, and a 40,000 ohm resistor (‘A * Farm Forum ❖ watt). The other materials con sisted of a discarded flashlight lens/reflector (L-R) assembly (If the silvering is worn off the reflec tor, just paint it white-works fine). Maryland Farm Bureau meeting, Sheraton Fontainebleu, Ocean Lancaster County Tobacco Auc tion Season opens. To Manage Firewood Dr. Timothy Elkner, Lancaster County Extension Horticultural Agent, reminds us, a pile of fire wood is an ideal place for insects and spiders to hibernate through the winter. Always wear gloves when reaching into a wood pile. Many inhabitants of your wood pile are capable of biting Although there is little chance of being bitten by a poisonous in sect, any bite will still be painful. Besides spiders, other pests living in wood piles include wood bor ers, beetles, carpenter ants, ter mites, bees and wood roaches. Store fire wood outdoors in an open area as far away from the house as practical. Stack firewood off the ground to reduce wood rot and pest problems. Never stack wood against your house. Cover the wood pile with plastic or sheet metal roofing to keep the wood dry. To Burn Firewood Dr. Timothy Elkner, Lancaster County Extension Horticultural Agent, offers the following tips on using firewood. When cold weather arrives, pieces of firewood may be moved nearer to the house for easy access. Firewood should be stored on a rack, patio or deck instead of on the ground. Bring only enough firewood into the house to be burned immediately. Firewood stored inside the home over an hour may warm up enough for the insects to emerge from within or under the bark and start their spring activities early. Do not store firewood in a heated garage or basement for the same reasons. a 3 x 8-inch piece of aluminum (PL), a short lenght of stranded lamp cord (or equal) wire (only 1 conductor is needed, so you can discard the other conductor), and a piece of 15-inch long metal tod to drive into the earth as a ground. The sketch is as follows: L-R “ old flashlight lens/reflec tor assembly PL = 3 x 8-inch aluminum or brass plate (Turn to Pag# A3l) ❖ Farm Calendar❖ Westmoreland County DHIA and Holstein Club annual meeting, Ephrata Area Young Farmers Meeting, Asset Allocation, Ephrata High School, 7:30 p.m. 12tb Regional Meeting on Practi cal Biosccurity For Poultry, (Turn to Pag* A3l) To Submit Farm Safety Grants For the third year in a row, the Farm Safety and Occupational Health (FSOH) Grant Program will award financial assistance, of up to $2,500, to’ statewide farm organizations, volunteer fire com panies, ambulance services and rescue squads within the com monwealth or a coalition of these organizations that wish to develop and deliver farm safety, occupa tional health and emergency re sponse programs. The goal of the program is to prevent accidents before they happen. The applications will be evaluated using the following cri teria: 1. the relevance and innova tiveness, 2. the geographic area of the project and the number of people affected, 3. the extent to which the applicant has secured ARE YOU A GNOSTICT December 7, 1997 Background Scripture: I John Lthrough 2:11 Devotional Reading: John 1:1-14 In early Christianity many Greek words became part of Christian vocabulary. Two of these words were orthodoxia and hairesis, which we render in Eng lish as orthodox and heresy. Or thodoxy meant “right opinion” and the term came to represent Christian beliefs which were judged to be true Christian doc trine. Originally, hairesis had no negative implications. It meant a “system or school of thought.” It implied a choice of one’s way of belief. In the early Church, how ever, hairesis came to represent the choice of what is not true. Early Christianity struggled constantly with a variety of here sies: Marcionism, Montanism, Sa bellianism, Arianism, Eutychian ism, Monophysitism, Ncstorian ism, Pelagianism and Gnosticism. Orthodox Christianity eventual ly prevailed over each of these heresies which eventually died out and have simply become part of Christian history. Except that, from time to time, some of these beliefs spring up, although gener ally not under the name of the an cient heresy that represent HERESY! HERESY! Heresy is 4 tiefni which is usuab ly not part of vocabulary today. We may know what it means, but we never use it our selves and rarely, if ever, hear others use it. The idea that some one might consciously choose to believe in something heredcal is foreign to most of us. We grant that people sometimes believe in something untrue, but if so, we think of it as simply a mistake, not a purposeful unorthodoxy. It is therefore interesting to dis cover that Gnosdcism, one of the most pervasive early heresies, taught that evil was simply error and ignorance, unfortunate beliefs for which a person could not be held responsible. They believed that Christ came into the world primarily to being us knowledge ( gnosis ) of the truth. Knowing the truth was tantamount to salvadon. So what people needed, Gnosdcs taught, was not forgiveness, but il luminadon. Christian orthodoxy, on the in-kind or financial contributions, 4. the impact and value of the pro ject upon the agricultural commu nity, 5. the extent to which the project involves cooperative ef forts of eligible organizations for farm safety and occupational health, and 6. the availability of funding from a source other than the FOSH Grant Program so that the project may continue. Grant applications are avail able from the Pennsylvania De partment of Agriculture by con tacting Ms. Shiree Hunter, Bu reau of Plant Industry, 2301 N. Cameron St., Harrisburg, PA 17110. The deadline for applica tions is January 30, 1998. Feather Prof, 's Footnote: "Cherish your yesterdays, dream your tomorrows, but live your todays." other hand, taught that sin is the root of evil, willful disobedience of God. Under this concept people were responsible for their sins and very much in the need of forgive ness. True discipleship was not to be found in what one believed, but in what one did about his or her beliefs. Here we find the true con nection between beliefs and deeds: what we believe should af fect how we live. Knowing the mysteries of God is of no use whatsoever if we do not live right eously and penitently before God. JESUS: A REAL HUMAN All of the above is by way of in troduction to I John. The author, probably the same man who wrote the fourth gospel, is writing to people who are being besieged by Gnostic teachings. The Gnostics taught that Christ was not a real human being, he only appeared to be. So, the author begins by saying as strongly as he can that Jesus was a real man which the apostles themselves experienced: “Thata which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands. . ." The imagery of light to describe God was a popular Gnostic teach ing. John says, yes, “God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” and you cannot live in darkness and have fellowship with the light “Darkness” here means sinful be havior, which is more than ignor ance, it is rebellion against God and calls for repentencc. Chris tians need to live righteously, avoiding sin, but, if they sin, and all of us do, the gospel has a re medy: “but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins. . .” Neither, says the author, can we share'in the light and be illumined if we fail to believe and live by the old commandment which is ever new: love one another. “He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still.” You cannot have right beliefs without love. You cannot hate and be correct in your beliefs. We don’t call it gnosticism to day, but the heresy is still with us here and there, now and then. You can’t know the truth and fail to love your neighbor. Lancaster Farming Established 1955 Published Every Saturday Ephrata Review Building IE. Main St. Ephrata, PA 17522 -by- Lancaster Farming, Inc. A Steinman Enterprise Robert Q. Campbell General Manager Everett R. Newewanger Managing Editor Ccpfright 1997bj LancatUr Farming
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers