AUTUMN
DAYS ARE FAST APPROACHING
Harvest days are almost past, and our
short Canadian summer is about ended, and by the 23rd day of
September, at five minutes to six in the morning, autumn will make its bow for
a short season and warn us to prepare for a long, cold winter, which the
almanac tells us will begin on the 21st of December, at six minutes
to ten in the evening. The katydids have been playing their music, and singing
their songs, which they generally begin about six weeks before the frost, and
in about three weeks more, the first Canadian frost of the season may be
expected. As a preliminary, Dr. Roberts has issued his mandate to the
unfortunate ones who are afflicted with the annual return of hay fever to keep
out of the range of golden rod, a very pretty flower to look at, but
tribulation to the sneezers. Out on the prairies of Illinois, golden rod grows
in luxuriance, and in the last weeks of August and in the first weeks in
September, it is one continual sneeze from one end of the state to the other.
But they are used to it. Here in Hamilton, the sneezers can escape by spending
their vacation up in Muskoka or among the lakes in Georgian bay. It is said
that an hour a day spent in an ice house is a preventative of hay fever, and
some Hamiltonians have been benefitted in past years by trying it. It is
certainly a cheaper remedy than paying the high prices at the northern resorts.
A Hamiltonian locally famed as a weather prophet says there is lots of fuzz on
the caterpillar’s back this season, which is a sign of a long, hard winter.
Those who are unfortunate enough to be caught without the winter’s supply of
coal cannot blame the coal dealers for not giving them due notice of what they
may expect.
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LOVE AND SCIENCE
Miss Epha Marshall, one of the leaders in the
Women’s Christian Temperance union, is quoted as saying that the time has
arrived when matrimonial selection must be made on a scientific basis. She has
lots of company, for it is common enough expression in these days of the
sterilized kiss. But we fail to see why the time has arrived. The other day the
world of lovers was astonished at reading in the daily papers that there is an
army of fifteen million girls without lovers, and no prospects of meeting an
army of men waiting to pop the question. The science of matrimony may be all right in
its way, but the question naturally arises how are those fifteen million dear
girls who have been looking forward to the time when they would have a home of
their own, with a loving husband to share with them the battle of life? Canada
furnishes its quota of single blessed girls, and Hamilton can count up a few in
the fifteen million. Surely there is no more occasion for injecting science
into our love affairs than there was before the roll call of the fifteen was
called, for the truth is that science and love are strangers. If they meet at
all, it is a casual acquaintance they
pick up, and neither one nor the other pays any attention to the records. The
other day the venerable father of President Harding took it into his head that
he had mourned as long as it was necessary for the dear mother of his boy who
had been elevated to the presidency of the United States, so he popped the
question to his stenographer and she modestly answered, “Yes.” The old doctor
had passed allotted age of three score and ten and the lady had spent a
lifetime of over fifty years as a blushing maiden.
There are any number of marriages that ought
to be prohibited, and some effort has been made in the mating of human beings.
But to attempt to apply the rules of science in mating that fifteen million
girls and women, to pick out a woman of certain characteristics and a man of
certain attainments, and tell them they ought to get married in the interests
of science, or a better human race, that is ridiculous. There is something
hidden in the human heart – which terms is used for want of a better one – that
refuses to abide by the dictates of Ovid’s Art of Love. Men and woman cannot be
happily mated by the books, and happiness is of some importance in this old
world. If the scientists had their way, they would probably have prevented
hundreds of marriages that have taken place in Hamilton these past fifty years;
but the records show that only a small per cent of them have turned out to be
unsatisfactory or disastrous. Let the scientists use all the science they want
to in their own affairs; the boys and girls are going to continue to fall in
love regardless of the rules and marry the one with whom they fall in love. But
there is that fifteen million dear girls to be taken into account. It is
useless for Miss Epha Marshall to talk about the time having arrived when
matrimonial selection must be made on a scientific basis.
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FROM
FARM TO CITY
During the past fifty years, there has
been a steady movement from the farms to the city. This has been a matter of
grave concern to those who have studied the population figures, but have not analyzed
the reasons back of this movement. The usual explanation is that life in the
city is more attractive than country life; that the average man or woman likes
the noise and bustle, the smoke and the grime of the city. Perhaps so, but back
of this is a more fundamental reason why the city dwellers tend to increase
while the population of the farms remains stationary. There was a time when a
large part of farm work was devoted to the breeding of horses. Faithful old
Dubbin is now being replaced by the automobile and the tractor, which are
strictly city products. Horse breeders are now mechanicals. Possibly the same
men have never changed jobs, but a city industry has replaced a farm industry.
Again, fifty years ago farm work was
largely done by hand. Now the farmer has the multiple plow, the reaper and the
threshing machine. This machinery is made in Hamilton by the Sawyer-Massey
company and by the International Harvester, and when trade is good, gives
employment in both dactories to not less than three thousand men. Just now the
farmers are not buying new machinery, and as a result the factory warehouses
are filled with unsalable goods. In nearly every city in Canada, there are
factories for the making of farm machinery, and the conditions are about the
same as those prevailing in Hamilton.
Time was when the farmers built their
own fences and split logs cut from the woods for posts. Now he buys wire fences
and steel posts from city manufacturers.
Milk was once separated and made into
butter and cheese by the farmers’ wives, but the program now is to ship the raw
milk to the city, where great distributing companies handle it on a large
scale. The dairy farmers around Hamilton had their list of customers in the
city, and the milk wagons were in town long before daylight. The time came when
a change was deemed profitable to both the customer and the dairy farmer, and
companies were organized in the city to handle the milk. In Hamilton, John Robson
Cameron, then editor-in-chief of the Spectator, conceived and brought into
existence the Pure Milk corporation. Mr. Cameron had a dairy farm in Waterdown,
managed by two sons, which was the foundation of the Pure Milk company, and a
number of businessmen furnished the capital for the purchase of buildings and equipment.
A competent superintendent was employed, and customers were not only supplied
with milk, but the surplus was churned into butter, and the cream into ice
cream. It has proven to be a profitable investment for the stockholders, and
also to the customers. Mr. Cameron did not live to enjoy any of the profits.
If we multiply these examples by
several hundreds we begin to understand why a stationary or even decreasing
farm population can continue to support a growing city population. In the old
days a farmer’s life was one of toil for both himself and his family; but times
have changed, and the farmer of today is one of the most independent of men.
Labor-saving machinery has changed the old-time drudgery into one of
comparative ease. The farmer and his family live on the fat of the land, and
every year his farm increases in value. The man who works in the International
Harvester or the Sawyer-Massey shops in Hamilton is contributing to the
agricultural output of Canada just as much as much, if not more, than if he
were actually working on a farm.
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