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fr- They tell us that the grain was showing five days after It sown We suppose this is I of a record but then this has been an unusual spring SWe dont recall ever seeing such large and bountiful apple blossoms nor enjoying such a procession of warm sunny days Was it last year that on the of May a cold west wind numbed the fingers of fathers flighting firecrackers for their children Of course by the time this is printed the weather may have changed but as we write the sun is almost too hot the odor of the blossoms is strong We are somewhat puzzled by I the large number of groundhogs there seems to be about Do groundhogs like rabbits breed in cycles with nature regulating the groundhog population over I definite periods Whatever the i cause they axe turning the pas tures into apartment blocks and long their numbers will have become so great that they no doubt apply to the mun icipal board for amalgamation Has the unusual spring wea lthier encouraged which rarely come this far north to I give it a try We wouldnt if- 1 know one from the other of the less common species but it seems to us in casual drives through King twp hills or in the sand and brush of Whit church that there is more color the wing and the air more musical with calls We have seen several birds which were new to us as well as larger numbers of the more common ones We were surprised at the tameness of three pairs of swal lows we saw investigating netting possibilities of an old barn A friend dismissed them as barn swallows but these seemed far more colorful than the former They had a lovely shade of blue to their wings and backs with breasts of a tawny shade Arent barn swallows white and black At any rate they breasted into the wind near the barn doors almost station while they looked over the prospect and then with a pip they were gone in beautiful swings across the valley Saw two nests in the building so we guess they are settling in Two orioles were welcome visitors in the old apple tree but they must have found fault with FOUR the view for they have left TKWbprMHrold Serving Publish every Thursday 143 Main St Nawmarimf and 4 tor two year 250 for on far Singlm of Class A of Canada Canadian Weekly Newspapers Aisackdian and Audit Bureau of Circulations Authorized as Class Mail Post Ottawa NOftiVMenaelitg iJOHll i RACINE Job Printing and Production THE IAL PAGE THURSDAY THE TWENTYFOURTH DAY OF MAY NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTYONE IT We paid a visit to Woodland Acres out the town line and just over the railway track on the edge of the reforested land It is the farm of Arnold and on it he raises chickens ducks trees and gravel There is also a cement block plant We saw the place a year ago about this time of the spring and recall the sand as a depress ing reminder of the waste of the past A year makes a great change for the green was fresh and bright on Sunday But what intrigued us most was the general air of bustle and optimism about what was once a wasteland The reforest ed area has brought life into desolation Within the orbit of three farms three creeks rise with steady flow nourished by the new growth There must be a great sense of satisfaction to those who helped create Vivian Forest to see what their hopes have be come From the Files of and 50 Years Ago MIDWEEK HOLIDAYS Once again we have a national holiday near mid week and once again it will be celebrated over two days as one half of the industrial and commercial activity of the country celebrates the legal date and the other works day and closes shop on Friday to give em ployees the benefit of a long weekend It is so ridiculous that one wonders what on earth there is to justify a holiday on a Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday May Surely tradition is not enough to cause the unthinking adherence to the calendar We are very much afraid that the glories of the reign of Queen Victoria play a little part in the observance It is the annual midspring holiday the day for removing storm windows putting in the garden visiting the cottage but no longer a day for remembrance So why then observe the calendar date so slavishly We are publishing Thursday as usual The sub- subscribers should get their paper through the mail as usual And on Friday the composing room staff will have a long weekend although the office will remain open L J J- ft MAY Mr Mont son of Mr Newmarket has received the appointment of clerk of the county police court under Col Mr Maurice a former teacher at Cedar Val ley was among the ordination class received and approved at the session of Ihe Toronto Con ference of the United church The ordination took place last Sunday afternoon at Carlton Street United church A special of the high school board took place in the council chamber on Tuesday af ternoon when the tenders for the new addition to the high school were opened There were over The tender of Avery Co Toronto for the whole work at was accepted The school is to be ready for occupancy on Sep tember Mr Ethan Connolly son of Dr and Mrs J Connolly formerly of Orch ard Beach has passed his final examinations in the electrical course at the School of Science The town band under the leadership of Mr P ac companied by the high school cadets boys scouts and wolf cubs paraded around own on Thursday evening The annual meeting and elec tion of officers for Mount Al bert was held in the base- of the church last Thurs day Officers elected were pros Mrs Geo vice Mrs A Dunn Mrs A pike Mrs Lapp press Mrs Stokes pian ist Miss On Monday afternoon be tween four and five oclock the heavily loaded freight car going north with trailers was delayed for nearly an hour by the blowing out of the air cylinder of a fiat car loaded lumber Mr Mount Al- is giving up the general store business and is holding a clearing sale of his stock MAY Butter and eggs were the principal commodities on the market last Saturday The former sold from to cents and the latter from to cents Potatoes were cents a bag apples as high as cents a basket Small live pigs were sold at 5 per pair A span of Indian ponies be longing to Mr A Newton near Newmarket got out of the field one night last week and wan dered nearly to Stouffvjlle A three pound speckled trout was caught in the vicinity of Mount Albert last week Principal Coombs of New market high school went to Bradford yesterday morning to give an address before the South Teachers Insti tute Mr and Mrs Elias Armitage Newmarket celebrated their golden wedding anniversary on Wednesday afternoon and eve ning when 23 relatives were present for dinner One day last week John and a friend were fish ing on the Holland River north of the Landing and caught rock bass The north end of the bridge on Second St caved in last week and on Friday Chief An derson had a gang of men fix ing it A new post office is to be opened in connection wilh the general grocery store and Ice cream parlor by Messrs Van Norman and Co at Orchard Beach Keswick The annual election of of ficers for the Senior League Aurora was held Mem- day evening Officers elected were York vice Mrs Miss Stephens Miss M J Stephenson recording sec Miss Holder cor sec Smith treas J pianists Miss Rogers Miss Rev J A Martin Brant- ford spent a few days in town visiting his sisterinlaw Mrs Andrew Ego this week WHICH COMES FIRST We are fascinated by the argument used to oppose milk price increases to the farmers by the distributors the Owen Sound area The producers presented a brief before the milk board in which it was stated that cost of production was a hundredweight and the producers were asking for a raise from their present a hundredweight to This is a reasonable increase when it is remembered the loss that the present price represents and that shipping charges must be paid from the asked for price But what really takes the cake is the reply of the dis tributors As reported in the Globe and Mail a Mr A Owen Sound dairy owner objected that such an increase would have to be passed onto the consumer and that in turn would result in new wage demands from the drivers It seems to us that the order of importance is sadly mixed up here The dairy industry is not operated for the benefit of the distributors as Mr Forsyth seems to imply One might reasonably say So what if the drivers ask a raise in pay It is neither here nor there in the question of whether producers should be paid a fair price for their milk Granted that in the marketing of a product con sumer price and cost of distribution is important but of first importance is whether it pays the producer to provide the product by which the distributors and their drivers earn their living Isnt it about time that the producers impressed upon distributors and their em ployees that the producer can exist without the distributors could not exist without the producers BACKFIRED RECRUITING ADVERTISING There was a fuss some months ago about recruiting advertisements It was agreed that there was too much emphasis upon benefits that the recruit receives from the services too little mention of the job he would be required to do One officer was quoted to the effect that you couldnt expect recruits to show the aggressive spirit required of a winning army if they had joined the forces to earn a pension and retirement pay education technical skill or any of the other inducements offered by recruiting advertisements If there was to be a change in policy as a result of these objections it is slow coming about An advertise ment this week in a Toronto paper is headlined by these words A Holiday With Pay For You and con tinues with Youll get paid to swim play live an army life with the Gove no Generals Horse Guards It is true that the advertisement was for a reserve unit but the thinking which inspired the ad vertisement is the same as that objected to earlier There is no doubt that pay pensions and the rest are attractive features of service life but the first purpose of the services remains the same to fight the countrys enemies Canadians no less than the rest of the democratic world arc engaged in a lifedeath strug gle with Communism Many Canadians will their lives before that struggle is ended One can le pardon ed for believing that Canada does not yet realize the seriousness of this struggle when recruiting advertise ments read more like advertisements for summer cruises than appeals for recruits in a fight for survival PROVINCIALMUNICIPAL RELATIONS These columns have insisted to the point of repet ition that municipal governments cannot properly exercise their functions while supported by grants from the province We have also insisted that the grants can only be discontinued when the municipalities are granted a wider tax authority These facts are admitted by the recent announce ment of Premier Frost that a committee will be set up to study the whole relationship between municipalities and the province with emphasis upon the grant system and limited taxing authority of the municipalities Mr Frost anticipates a difficulty in widening mun icipal tax sources He fears there will be duplication of taxation The answer to this objection is obvious curtail provincial taxation There is no justification for the extent to which the province has gone in raising taxes so that grants can be returned to the municipal ities Some equalization of income is necessary since no two municipalities have the same opportunities to raise funds but the system as it is now has been carried to ridiculous lengths with the government pay ing grants on almost every phase of municipal admin istration Payment of grants from one level of the govern ment to another is a dangerous practice It encourages a topheavy civil service It encourages waste It restricts the authority of local governments Tax money should be raised by the government which spends it if there is to be some guarantee of good government Another issue which has received considerable attention was the autonomy enjoyed by school boards At the present time councils cannot restrict school board spending This year more than in the past there has been a considerable increase in school taxes In Newmarket for example the increase in school costs was almost the entire increase in town Members of council have long argued that school costs should bo subject to the final authority of council In Newmarket again anticipated increases in general expenditures were greatly reduced when the size of school costs was realized It was argued by some that a compromise reduced school costs and increased gen eral rates to make up the increase would have been preferable to the heavily reduced general rate The other side of the story is that if school costs were placed under council authority the tendency would be to hold down education costs as road main tenance and other civic costs have been held down in the past in Newmarkets case some of the increase was set aside for maintenance of school property This is sound practice but it has been ignored by councils in the past ami if school costs were subject to council it is a fair bet that such costs would have been struck out What has actually happened seems to be that the school boards freed of many of the political restrictions which are imposed upon councils have raised their costs in keeping with the times while councils have held down their costs in an effort to maintain low taxes despite inflation It is a losing battle Taxes the price tag on civil services are bound to go up just as the prices of any other commodity School costs have shown an extra large increase because before the war they were very much below an acceptable level WHERE IS NEWMARKET Where is Newmarket The puzzled girls oil the front page were photographed under the roadsigns at and but for all the information to he hud there they could scarcely be expected know it was just over the hill Thousands upon thousands of tourists pass New market each weekend travelling the No 11 highway Many of them could be easily diverted in the direction of town if there were adequate signs at the corner It is just plain foolishness to let another summer by without erecting those signs Newmarket now extends to the highway Surely there is no longer any excuse to wait Those tourists represent dollars Who throws away a chance for business those days At a recent Womens Institute conveners meeting the need for encouraging interest in local history was stressed This is all to the good and in the reports of local branches a growing attention to history is noticeable There is an almost unlimited field for his torical interest in North York not ffoir faftfa on ffcfr and inues not mi which wt i Off ice Cat Reports Catnips By Ginger Special from the Con- Weekly to The Era and Express courtesy of the East End Racings private wire By Ginger who flew to Lon don over the weekend to give a first hand report on conditions among the peers You readers back at home have probably read about these peers over here going broke Most of them have to run peep shows in their castles and hire dancing girls to attract the Am erican tourists But the tourist business isnt enough to keep things going The Labor government has pro mised to do something about helping to keep up these great mansions After all they are part of the traditions here High cost of living and taxes make them a heavy burden on the nobles some nobles have lost most of their money trying to keep them up Your correspondent thanks to the facilities of the Con sumers Weekly was able to interview one of these nobles Lord Lashwell yesterday As I drove up the long hedged castle drive in my rented midg et sportster a bevy of baying beagles howled a welcome to me The merry note of the hunters horn sug gested hosts of happy hunters Only there were no hunters and the horn was merely to impress tourists and was tooted by a manservant who was hiding in the garden house As I stepped out of my zidrine I looked along a red carpet up to the massive front door straddled by massive pil lars On the red carpet I was astonished to see the faint out line of the words The I learned afterward that Lord Lashwell had acquired it on a trip to London He brought it home and ran the over it in an unsuccessful at tempt to remove the name of the hotel I pulled the cord at the front door and was surprised to see Lord Lashwell himself dressed as a butler got my training in a bit part I did with the Arthur Rank organization he said Best sort of training if we are going to sell ourselves to the by Dairy Farmer The Top Six Inches can tourist One moment and I will call his lordship Lord disappeared and in five minutes returned to the vast centre hall of the an cient palace This time he was dressed as Lord and as a lord should be dressed But I was disillusioned by an identification tag sticking out from under his collar Cos tumes by Tell me your lordship I asked What do you think of this price war on cover charg es Definitely said What we need is to be nationalized We cant keep up with this free system we havent a chance Why the Duke of Rumble- turn just over the hill at Shov- has cut his tourist cover charge to a shilling and has hired a barker with a PA system at his gate house I tell you we just cant cope with it Why dont you convert into a chicken ranch or go in for blooded stock and give up the tourists I asked Oh animals or fowl would never live in this castle Too damp he said Besides blood ed stock would never stand the strain with the ghost of walking the corridors when the moon is horned Oh you have a ghost here too I asked Yes shes my feature attrac tion She was murdered here years ago by her infant daughter during a squabble over which knight her daughter would marry Her infant daughter grew up to be a witch and had quite a successful car eer casting spells on wicked nobles The Americans love eat it up Well I think you have a real nice place here and I cer tainly hope you can keep up your payments I said Oh thanks awfully said his lordship and if you are writ ing up this in your paper you might mention that we stay open nights before holidays and we give special prices to picnic parties That is what is happening to peers over here in England Thank you East End Seeding is late this year at least in pur part of the country There is one thing about our weather and that is there is a surprise every year for most of us Last year it was the heavy rains with the frost still in the ground It did an awful lot of damage eroding fields This year the heavy rains came after the frost was out and between IhaJ and sonic extra precau tions on the hill side most of our fields held quite well We know a fellow who drilled and disked rye in his steepest fields last fall The rye did not do anything particular last year in the fall but this spring it came right along and the steep est of his fields were well pro tected- Let us tell you though before you all go for the idea that this very same fellow is in some trouble this spring It is quite a job to make a good seed lions on the hill side most of ten inches of real thick rye We did have a lot of moisture this year in the ground Hilt or dale we could get our tractor stuck just about my place and here at least the first part of the spring work had to be done with hydraulic implements We have never or experienced as much moisture in the ground In some places one could bully the tractor through and leave water standing in the wheel marks However it is an ill wind that blows no good When the seed went in the ground fin ally it came along very fast We have seen fields up ami the rows plainly visible after five day We firmly believe that the crops look today as well as if they had been planted the first week in May under ordinary spring conditions We are ad- THE OLD HOME TOWN vised and experiments of song years standing at show that the earlier the seed into the ground the better the crop will be We think this year might be an exception With the heat we have and the moisture crops seem to be in real shape so far This is the first thing that stands out in our mind this year The other is the use of hydraul ic implements We found last year that they are very satis factory They will do a type of work that other implements wont These tools that will lift out of the ground when the going gets tough are a real thing and probably the one and only real new idea about these many years Have you ever considered how little imagination the im plements men used in years past when it came to making tractors work Let me tell you a few examples The average tractor implements for years has been just another horsedrawn mach ine only much bigger The same weight of material was used The result was that they didnt stand up Even today a drill for the tractor with one exception that we know of is just as high off the ground as its horsedrawn ancestor The hydraulic implement is the only new idea we have seen We will say that things are improving slowly We doubt however if the have really exhausted all the possibilities in design that the tractor has offered them It is just another case where the sellers market has retarded the growth and development of something very important to farmers By STANLEY say- You l AMD J TO THrM TIMES SIXTH BISCUIT TMATS ALL ABOUT IT i ii