THE MEYERSDALE COMMERCIAL
Harbor of Odessa.
DESSA, the Russian seaport,
captured by the Germans not
long ago, has been widely
known as an important center
of shipping and commerce, but its
interest does not lie so much in its
great docked harbor, its fine churches
and public bulldings, its factories or
its size—it had half a million people
at the beginning of the war—as in
the fact that a century and a quarter
ago there was none of these in exist-
ence.
New York, Boston, Baltimore and
Philadelphia are cities almost ancient
in comparison with Odessa. Odessa is
a sort of Chicazo or Kansas City of
Europe—a “new town,” in the lan-
guage of the West. Just as there were
Indian trading posts where Chicago
and Kansas City had their beginnings,
so there was a wretched little Turkish
village on the future site of Odessa in
the time of Catherine the Great of
Russia. Russia saw the possibilities
of a port on the Black sea and reached
out and took it, with little or no pro-
test, for Hdjl Bey, as the Turkish vil-
lage was called, was not worth quarrel-
ing about. Catherine founded Odessa
by rescript in 1794 and the “booming”
of the new city began.
Grain Built the City.
The Russian “pioneers” built their
town on the plateau which forms a ter-
race from 100 to 150 feet above the
water front. Today a great staircase,
which is one of the wonders of Odessa,
leads up in broken flights from the
harbor to the city proper. Located at
the northwest angle of the Black sea,
midway between the estuaries of the
great Dnieper and Dniester rivers,
Odessa was the natural commercial
outlet for the vast stretches of grain-
producing valleys beyond and its
growth was like that of the Western
trade centers in America. The Eng-
lish ships found their way there to load
their holds with grain, and exporting,
as the years went by, grew steadily
’
in volume for a number of years.
The Crimean war interrupted Eng-
lish trade with Russia, but when the
conflict was over the British traders
returned to Odessa. It was at this pe-
riod that they were forced to divide the
trade with Germany, for German
shippers had seized the opportunity to
gain a foothold in the port.
The war offers just now an edd par-
allel of that war of trade waged 60
years ago. It may be of significance
to recall that the ultimate result of
the Anglo-German contest for Russia's
Odessa trade was that the Jews gain-
ed absolute control of the exporting
business of the city.
Bloody Revolution in 1905.
In 1905 Odessa was the scene of a
violent revolution. The Russian navy
mutinied and trained the big guns of
the warship in the harbor on the city.
The disorders were quelled by the
czar's military forces, but not before
there was bloodshed and suffering
which centered the world's attention
on the city.
Odessa before the war was proud
of its beautiful parks and boulevards.
The refuge of many French nobles in
the time of the French revolution, the
streets are evidence of the fact, for
they bear names reminiscent of roy-
alty of France. The main thorough-
fare, however, is the Street of the
Transfiguration, which begins at the
magnificent cathedral and ends at the
gate of the consecrated ground of the
‘Orthodox Greek cemetery.
The popularion is largely Tartar, on
which has been grafted Slav, Teuton,
Norse, Finnish and Lettish stock, but
at the beginning of the war it was
said to be still Tartar in the main. Cat-
acombs extending under the rich city
and its beautiful suburbs through va-
rious periods of Odessa’s career have
times the underground inhabitants
have numbered as many as 35,000.
Scene on One of
CAMPING PLACE OF NATION
That Seems to Be the Manifest Des-
tiny of the Sequoia National
Park.
Analysis shows that the very large
increase in visitors to the Sequoia
National park last summer amount-
ing to nearly 60 per cent over the rec-
ord attendance of the summer before,
a fact which strongly emphasizes
what has been called the “manifest
destiny of the Greater Sequoia as
the future summer camping place of
the nation.
The report of the director of the
national park service says:
“It was a most pleasing sight to
stand in the midst of the Giant For-
est during the summer and gaze upon
the attractively situated and taste-
fully decorated camps nestled each
at the base of an enormous sequoia.
It was a peaceful scene and a bheauti-
ful one. There was nothing to do in
the forest but rest, breathe the health-
the Odessa Quays.
INS NISSAN SSNS
“The enormous increase in travel
to the park early in the summer dis-
closed the fact that it would only be
a matter of a year or two before all
available camping space would be
taken long before the height of the
season; also that the streams of the
park, unless carefully stocked each
year, would be fished out before the
summer would be half gone. Antic-
pating the" inevitable need of more
camping grounds, the Giant Forest
boad has been continued from Wol-
verton to the Marble Fork river,
where a splendid opportunity for the
development of a fine big camp area
exists. There are no sequoia trees
here, but there is a fine forest of
pines and firs, and the ground is cov-
ered with a clean white gravel that
will make camping especially satis-
factory. This new camp area will be
near the best fishing waters that are
at all times accessible, and an effort
will be made to keep these waters
well stocked with trout.”
housed the miserably poor, and at’
restoring air, drink the clear, cold The Enthusiast.
water, and contemplate the dignity| ‘There is the man whose eye inevit-
and beauty of the biggest and oldest | ably exaggerates, whose ear inevitably
living things. Fishermen came and { hears what is not, whose imagination
went, and the hikers and horseback | inevitably helps out his five senses. He
riders took the trails and returned |js the hero worshiper, the enthusiast,
from the higher altitudes of the park, | the romantic. He is the sort of fellow
but the peacefulness and quietude of | who, if he were a bacteriologist, would
the forest was never disturbed. | report the bacillus typhosus to be as
Camping in the Giant Forest is all | large as a horse, as lovely as a gatelle
that anybody has written about it and | and intelligent as Aristotle—H. L.
more. It is a glorious experience. | Mencken in the New York Mail.
Would Eliminate Non-Essentiah in
Endeavor toWinWar From Germany
By W. R. STUBBS, Former Governor of Kansas
How to win the war is the one overshadowing
question in America today. It is a question of whether
the sword shall govern the earth or that there shall be
governments of free opportunities. We must have
food, and the farmers must produce it. We must have
transportation. We must build more ships and more
railway engines and cars.
Take the men engaged in industries not essential to
the war and put them into necessary war industries.
Hundreds of thousands of persons are building autos
for pleasure riding. These men should be put to work
at the building of ships, engines and airplanes. We should make the skies
over the German trenches black with our planes. We should not give the
men of the German army time to slecep—keep them dodging bombs. This
is no dream. We should have men, material and power.
Standard Dress Idea Received With
Disfavor By Women of England
By F. J. HOWARD, London; England
Now we have the staggering proposal that the harassed British gov-
ernment should enforce a standard dress for women. The greatly daring
author of the idea proposes, in short, that the dear sex, whose sartorial
eccentricities make men’s hearts heavy and their pockets light, should
be uniformed. 3
Imagination reels at the thought! Can you conjure up a world in
which all women are dressed alike? It would be a world robbed of much
of its glamor for men—a ‘drab, colorless world, in which a man would
find it difficult on occasion to distinguish his aunt from his mother-
in-law. .
This very courageous patriot suggests that the government should
issue details of three standard patterns of costumes, or “uniforms,” and
allow only a limited number of colored fabrics to be manufactured. He
is apparently unaware that owing to difficulties in regard to dyes there
is only a limited number of colored fabrics already.
A stately and beautiful lady in a large dressmaking establishment
told me so, and at the same time volunteered the opinion that any serious
interference with women in the matter of dress would lead to trouble com-
pared with which the suffragist shindies of a few years ago would seem
like harmless effervescences.
What the lady said was something like that, but of course she may
have been exaggerating. All the same, I am convinced that in a matter
of this kind we should look before we standardize.
All the women I interviewed on the subject—and I interviewed a
good many—declared that women would not stand any standardizing of
their dress. They were willing to help in any other way to administer
to order—No! If the government dared, they said, to dictate to women
what they should wear—well, something unpleasant would happen !
|| Excellent Reasons Why We Must Feed
Our Soldiers and Our Allies
By CHARLES F. JONES
Another great battle we at home have to fight is to avoid wasting
the food and the supplies that our men and our allies at the front must
have to win the war. : :
Many men and women will gladly fight or give to win the war, but
will not deny their own stomachs. Many a man thinks or claims that
he thinks, that France ought to supply all her fighters and ours with food.
Heretofore, they say, armies lived off the country in which they fought.
What may be true of the past is not true of today’s war.
How much food could we raise or would we raise, if a victorious
German army was twenty miles away, pressing hard upon us to come
here where we are today? And if the French sent an army over to help
us hold back the enemy, how could we feed them, if we could not feed
ourselves? What use would the French army be unless they brought
their supplies with them ?
Remember that the French are fighting with their back to the ocean.
Thus the supplies that they get must come from over the ocean.
Then there are others who will say, if we have to feed the fighters
in France, why not feed them on corn and the foods that are plentiful,
and let us at home have the flour and the sugar.
Pork is the heat giver, sugar the stimulant, and both are necessary
to the life and health of the soldier.
Deaths From Rattlesnake Bites Are
Very Rare in United States
By ALFRED WESTFALL
Colorado Agricultural College, Fort Collins
Of the poisonous snakes inhabiting the United States, the rattle-
snake is perhaps the deadliest and undoubtedly the best known. There
are a number of varieties of this reptile. Although rattlesnakes are
found in all sections of the country, the majority of them are in the
arid and semiarid regions of the Southwest. The most common kind
in Colorado is the prairie rattlesnake.
Practically all people enjoying the outdoors are more or less afraid
of getting bitten by a rattlesnake. And yet considering the number of
from snake bite is extremely rare. There is no comparison between losses
in this country and those in India, where official figures report 22,000
deaths annually. This difference is no doubt largely due to the fact that
| here a large portion of the population does not evince a general inclina-
| tion to go bare-legged through stretches of serpent-infested territory.
| Adults bitten by the smaller varieties of snakes have frequently recovered
without medical assistance. In recent years the majority of recorded
fatalities from rattlesnake bite have resulted from careless handling of
! captive specmens,
the final knockout blow to the Boehe, but restricted fashions and dressing |
these reptiles, the number of casualties is very small. In fact, death.
(Special Information Service, United States Department of Agriculture.)
RHUBARB—MAKE THE MOST OF IT
Rhubarb Fresh From the Garden. Ready for Use in Any One of Half a
Dozen Attractive Ways.
RHUBARB 1S ONE
OF BEST PLANTS
Advance Guard of Many Good
Things in Way of Fresh
Fruits and Vegetables. ~
YOUNG LEAVES ARE TENDER
Expert of Department of Agriculture
Relates Her Experience in Making
Delicious Dishes—Some Recipes
Are Given,
I always hail with delight the first
tender stalks of rhubarb that grow in
my garden. They are the advance
guard of so many good things in the
way of fresh fruits and vegetables
that the spring and summer bring to
us.
Even the back yard or city garden
can have its clump of rhubarb. ‘I find
it one of the most useful plants in my
garden. By cutting out the bloom
stalk before it matures and pulling the
stalks often I have good rhubarb all
summer. If neglected too long the leaf
stalks become woody, but the young
leaves in the center of the crown will
be tender and usable all summer. The
leaf area should not be reduced too
much by harvesting, as it will weaken
the root and reduce the harvest the
following year. Even when fruits come
I do not forget the rhubarb, and in pre-
serving time it repays me for my care
by saving me money.
Making Preserves.
Strawberries and raspberries are
usually expensive to buy by the crate
for preserving, but I make preserves,
using from one-third to one-half by
weight of rhubarb. Both raspberries
and strawberries have a decided flavor,
80 that the rhubarb is not noticeable.
I allow the rhubarb to cook down
until fairly concentrated before adding
the berries. The result is a delicious
jam or preserve,
From time to time I cut the rhu-
barb and, if it is not wanted for im-
mediate use, put up a few cans for
winter. I have kept some very suc-
cessfully by cutting into half-inch
pieces, packing in jars and filling to
overflowing with cold water, then seal-
ing the jars as usual.
Later in the summer I make a few
jars of rhubarb conserve, cooking the
rhubarb with sugar until concentrated,
then adding nuts and raisins.
When rhubarb made its appearance
this spring I resolved to find a way to
use it without using more than my
share of sugar. I have found that by
using corn sirup I can make rhubarb
sauce successfully.
Rhubarb Sauce.
Wash the rhubarb and cut in half-
inch pieces. Put three cupfuls of the
cut rhubarb in a saucepan with two
tablespoonfuls of water and cook for
five minutes. Add one and one-half
cupfuls of corn sirup and cook to-
gether until the rhubarb is tender.
If you desire a sweeter sauce, a
tablespoonful or so of sugar will help.
One of my favorite desserts is rhu-
barb tapioca.
Rhubarb Tapioca.
Soak a half cupful of pearl tapioca
in two cupfuls of water until soft. Put
in double boiler and cook until clear,
adding more water if necessary. Add
a half teaspoonful of salt and stir in
two cupfuls of rhubarb sauce. When
cool add a teaspoonful of vanilla.
Chill and serve with cream.
Another favorite of mine is rbuabarb
scallop. I save all left-over muffins or
biscuits made from the wheat substi-
tutes and grind them into crumbs.
These I use as a basis for scalloped
dishes.
Rhubarb Scallop.
Wash tender rhubarb stalks and cut
into pieces about an inch long. For
each cupful of crumbs use a cupful
and a half of the cut rhubarb. If the
crumbs are very dry, moisten slightly
with water. Butter a baking dish and
put a layer of crumbs sprinkled with
c¢hmnamon or nutmeg, then a layer of
rhubarb and three or four tablespoon-
fuls of corn sirup. Dot with butter.
Repeat until dish is full, covering the
top with buttered crumbs. Bake for
20 minutes and brown on top. This
may be served hot with or without
sauce.
RHUBARB—HOW
TO USE IT
One of the food specialists em-
ployed by the United States de-
partment of agriculture is an en-
thusiast on rhubarb. Not only
does she demonstrate it in the
departmental kitchens and else-
where, not only does she com-
mend its good qualities to wom-
en everywhere, but she grows
it in her own garden and pre-
pares it in her own kitchen for
use by her own family. Read
her statement of some of the
excellent uses she finds for it.
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Breadless Meals Save Wh=at.
How are you saving wheat? One
way is to serve breadless meals now
and then. Have you ever tried them?
Breadless meals need planning
ahead. You can’t take just any menu
and take the bread out and expect the
family to like it. Bread has several
functions in the meal, and fully de-
serves the high opinion which we have
of it. It is one of our best foods for
fuel, furnishing carbohydrate in the
form of starch and also body-building
protein and mineral substances. But
if the meal contains enough other food
to furnish the starch and the protein
needed why not save the bread?
Try planning your meals so” that
these wheat-saving dishes take the
place of the bread. Potatoes, sweet
potatoes or dasheens—mashed, baked,
boiled or riced—rice, oven-fried corn-
meal mush, hominy grits, large hom-
iny, baked beans, lima beans, split
peas—all are good served as vege-
tables, with meat and gravy. It is not
necessary to serve more than one of
these starchy foods at a meal, but
serving two of them, for instance.
well-browned, crusty croquettes or
fried mush (and these can be cooked
in the oven instead of in the fat ket-
tle) in addition to potatoes or sweet
potatoes, makes the meal more tasty
for many of us and is dn easy way of
securing variety. Aside from the
question of economy and convenience
the important thing in such a case is
not the number of cereal foods served.
but the character of the meal as a
whole, which must be truly varied and
not made up almost entirely of any
single type of food. We must have
other kinds of food in our diet in
abundance as well as starchy foods.
Therefore, in planning your bread-
less meals make sure that you serve
an abundance of fresh vegetables,
such as green cabbage, kale, turnip
tops, onions, onion tops, dandelions
and other greens, asparagus, green
peas, tomatoes, spinach, carrots and
80 on, choosing those which are in sea-
son and abundant in your garden or
your market. With a varied meal
planned in the usual way, except that
the servings of the starchy foods and
the vegetables are larger than usual
to make up for the bread, you can
have a breakfast, dinner or supper
which may be pleasing to the taste and
which will meet the body needs.
There are other food combinations
and dishes which you can take advan-
tage of in planning the meals with
bread. For instance, you may prefer
to replace part of your usual allow-
ance of bread with a wheat-saving
dessert. These desserts furnish much
the same food materials as bread, but
in a different form: Rice pudding,
hominy pudding, Indian pudding, tapi-
oca cream or fruit tapioca, cornstarch
pudding, baked bananas (use bananas
which are underripe, because they are
richer in starch than the ripe ones),
or gingerbread made from the wheat
substitutes,
thairan
$2.50.
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