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i '^ â-  € -^» f- '« « «' â- r « « • ^ s « « 4 « k^ -^â-  * % < « ♦ ^ --jr.- ».- A. * a * 4 * « « '% it > â- f ft ; i . ik « « t * • »- « '* * a > j » •^9 â- â€¢ • « « â- * < • K ♦ A • , t * ♦ * T 4 > m » * 4 ♦ 4 » A. Xhey Go Years Without "Water Xnv^-nine people out of a hiiii- dred will tell you with surenes* of mind â€" "Of course, all animals need to drink water at least once a day." 'That is an erroneous belief, for there are many animals in the world that go for a period of from a month to two or three years without being able to secure drinking-water, Willi* P. Knight writes in< Our Dumb Animals. The only moisture they ob- tain is from morning dew or from the fleshy leaves of plants. Right in our own country are little animals that do not even care for water if k is set before them. Camel's Stomach One might suppose that such ani- nals have means of storing water •uppUes as does the camel, with his •tomach of several divisions. The camel drinks very generously and his stomach acts as a reservoir so that he can travel across the desert and not be obliged to drink for •everal days. A few animals do ab- »orb moisture m their bodies during the rainy season of the country where each lives but others do not tven meet with a rainy season- In the Pacific Ocean lies an unin- habited land known as Henderson's Island. It is about six miles long, has no annual rainfall, no swamps or water holes and no Korings. It is the driest place imaginAle and yet on that island live rats, lizards and about half a dozen birds of various species. The birds may be able to fly 120 miles to Pitcairn Island and get water but the rats and lizards stay there at home and get abso- lutely no drinking water as long aa they live. What moisture they get comes from dew and from a few desert plants that grow on the island. Sahara Desert * If you were to go to the Sahara Desert you would find wild pigs living along its border foothills. This region has rainfall perhaps once in two or three years and it is not of a sufficient amount to fill up deep water holes or cause springs of water to form. These wild pigs f«t what moisture they can from the thick, fleshy leaves of the cactus' One of the most interesting ani- mals that does not seem to need aa abundant supply of water is a small rodent known as the pocket moust which lives in our deserts. It r«- mIvss its name because each cheek has a fur-lined pocket on tli$..xiato!dt and in this it stores food such ti auts, etc. This tiny creature thrives where water seldom falls and when springs are rarely encountered. If ''one of them Is kept in captivity and water is offered, it may taste It out Old Gray Maro Show* Them More Motorists Must Show Their Colors â€" of Gas ! â€" In Jerusalem an Israeli policeman siphons g;as from a car in a check of unauthor- ized use of army supplies. Army gas is colored to prevent illegal use. of curiosity but seldom takes a real drink. It will live for months on nothing but seed'' well dried tnd ' thus does not gain any moisture. Kangaroo Mouse ' In the western part of this coun- try is another rodent, the wood rat, that lives in a place where rain falls not more frequently than once a year and in the Sonora Desert is the kangaroo mouse that does not drink from vi-ater holes or springs and gets its moisture from desert plants. In nearly all deserts rain does fall in threat quantities when it finally comes and the plants soak up enormous quantities of the water and thus are enabled to live until the next rainfall appears in from one to three years. Among the large animals that sel- dom drink may be mentioned the prong-horned antelope, and the mountain sheep of nearly every land where rainfall Is scarce- In fact, a mountain sheep teems to be the hardiest of all mammals and can go from three to five months with no water to drink. Lincoln's Dream Thomas Edison was a pioneer la the uic of electricity for traction. One afternoon in 1865, President Lincoln's Cabinet entered a council room for a meeting, and found the President seated at the head of the table, his fact buried in his hands. Presently he raised his head. Hi* face grave and worn. ^ "Gentlemen," he said, "before long you will have important news." Someone inquired, "Have you bad news, Mr. President? Is it some- thing serious?" "I have heard nothing; I've had n. news," he replied. "But last night I had a dream. I dreamed I was in a boat, alone. I had no oars, no rudder. I was fielpless in a boundless ocean." There was silence for a moment Then the President added: "I hare had that dream many times during the war. And each time, some great battle came within a day or two. Yes, gentlemen. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in just a few hours, you will have important news." Five hours later, .\brahara Lin- coln was assassinated. PEACETIME USE FOR WARTIME DEVICEâ€" That's a wartime mine detector â€" but in the picture it's being used to find stray pieces of metal which may be in these bales of rubber, just arrived from Malaya. Metal is sometimes found imbedded in the raw rubber and must be removed lest it injure the processing tiiachines. THIS CURIOUS WORLD By William Ferguson CAsnA SHADOW AlMOSrA •MMJLICN MILES wtjum 5R4ca. A look in the mirror at regular intervals would be t great help In finding the one responsible for many of our troubles- The horse is a good swimmer and he moves through the water rory smoothly. I saw a hundred horses swim half way across the lake and back at Fort Qu'Appelte once and it gave me quite a thrill to watch them. An old grey mare was their leader. They were in a strange pasture bordering on the lake and she was homesick! She led the band down to the water and, after a few swal- lows, with her ears pricked she walked deliberately out beyond the shallow water and headed in a bee- line for the opposite shore which was a good mile away. She had a seven weeks old foal at her side and a yearling colt fol- lowing her. They never hesitated but followed her closely, as did every horse in that band. Ears pricked, eyes gleaming as much as to say, "I don't know where the old girl thinks she is going, but I guess it's all right. Anyway they all went, just like a brood of great ducks in V formation with the rip- ples streaming out behind them. Another fellow and myself went on horseback and we had just about made up our minds to ride around to the other side of the lake so as to head them oS when they came ashore, when for some inexplicable reason the old grey leader swam around in a wide circle and headed back to the very spot where she took to the water. Perhaps her foal was tiringâ€" they had been in the water for 15 to 80 minutes, or she made up her mind the distance across was too great. Anyway they all emerged safely and if you ever saw a slick looking lot of horses you did then I The sun shining on their soaking coats made them look like bronxe and ebony, gold and silver. It did- n't take them long to change their appearance, however. A couple of shakes and a roll in the sand and the transformation was complete! Try This Test Dr. Donald A. Laird once asked a class of boys at Colgate Uni- rersity to write down as fast as they could the initials of people they disliked. In a half minute some boys could think of only one person, . others, listed as many as 14. And those who disHked the largest num- ber were the boys who. Dr. Laird had discovered from previous re- search, were themselves the most widelv disliked. A young bride, disturbed by her husband's presence in the kitchen while she was preparing dinner, ac- cidently knocked her cookbook tc the floor. "You've m.id« ir.e lost the place," she cried, "and I haven't the least idea what I'm cooking!" Will The Machine Man Made Finally Destroy Mankind? Enshrinement in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington of the Wright brothers' "Kitty Hawk," the first airplane to fly. and the simultaneous prediction that man soon may be able to travel through the air at a speed of 3,000 miles an hour dramatically illustrate how rapid has been the development of the ftiachine. At the same time these things must raise the question of what man is doing to control this supersonic force his skill and ingenuity have developed. Has he, like Frankenstein, invented a mon- ster that will eventually destroy him? Can he learn in time how to control himself as well as the ma- chine so that its great potentialities can be used to achieve good ends and a better life for everyone, or will he allow it to be used by evil or stupid men for evil ends? This enormous development in the speed of flight is something that has come about during the lifetime of most of the adult population vA the world. The Wright brothers are dead, but these was a S3-year- old man at the Smithsonian Insti- tution, Friday, who saw the first flight from Kill DevU HiU on Dec. IT, 1903. The Kitty Hawk's first flight of 180 feet and the second of 8SS were made at speeds of about six and nine miles an hour, respec- tively. A man can run faster than that. A year later airplane speed was up to fifty miles an hour. Now, only forty- five years later, a young Army officer has flown at a speed of 1,000 miles an hour, and the de- veloper of the rocket plane he flew says this speed can be tripled. This passage through the wild blue yon- der at four times the speed of sound strains the imagination. At that speed London would be only a lit- tle over an hour distant from New York, and Moscow an hour and a half. The evil uses to which this ma- chine that has telescoped distances almost beyond comprehension in less than half a century can be put was amply illustrated in the Second World War. Armies moved at little faster pace than did the Ro- man legions, but in the air the Second World War was fought at speeds of 400 and SCO miles an hour. It is so vast an arena, that of. the air, that there can be no absolute defense against attack. There was not in the last war at the now relatively slow speeds of 500 miles an hour. At 8,000 miles an hour the balance swings even more heavily to the attackers' side. In a peaceful world this devourer of distance can bring many bene- fits to mankind. Food and medicine and succor to overcome the effects of natural disasters can be sent to where they are needed almost as soon as the need is known. But a 3,000 - mile - a - minute plane could carry an atomic bomb the same distance in the same period of time. It would seem to behoove man to look to his development oi peace machinery, and to accept the re- straints on national pride and anger that are the only sure guarantee against war. Otherwise this ma- chine he has invented will over- whelm and' destroy him. The eholce is his to make. THEPAEM lEONT ilviv12us5elL ^ Maybe you've heard of the old- fashioned farmer who â€" when ukad if he ever made use of the varioua bulletins sent out by the Dominion and Provincial Departments ol Agriculture, sniScd scornfully. "In the summer time, when they might be some good to me, I'm too blamed busy to rtad the things; and who wants to read about farming in winter, when there's nothing a body ean do about the land?" Well, that's one way of lookinc at it, all right. But during the Ions winter months it mighn't be i bad a tion to sort of catch up on one's reading, and get a slant at some of the ideas â€" both new and old â€" that are going the pounds. ' • « • For instance. Bulletin No. 459 â€" "Life of the Soil"â€" issued by th« Ontario Department of Agriculture, has some mighty interesting thinga (o say, from which I quote as fol- lows: ♦ • • "K soil without organic matter, or fibre or humus, is a DEAD SOIL. All soils contain at least some of such organic matter, but many farm soils contain so little that they are perilously close to ex- haustion and ultimate death. This h; resulted from oyer-cultivation and cropping, with failure to put back enough organic matter to keep up sufficient resources in the soil." "The capacity of any soil to pro- duce crops is lowered as Its organic matter is reduced. As the soil's productive capacity decreases leas organic matter â€" in the form of crop residues, manure and so on is avail- able to be returned to the land. Thus a vicious circle sets in â€" poor erops to leave less organic matter â€" less organic matter to leave poorer soiL Is it any wonder then, that finally the tired, run-down soil gives up and refuses to produce any srop at all?" « « « "This is not just theory. It has happened on many farhis right in the midst of what we consider the best agricultural areas of Ontario. It is happening even now in farms al'. over the Province, because of misuse of the land. Prosperity of farming depends on the farms con- tinuing capacity to produce good erops. Soil depletion undermines and destroys the very foundation of agriculture." « « « The first step toward returning soi' to vJ original productive'* con- dition â€" the Bulletin goes on to ex- plain â€" is to sit down and take stock of your past cropping programs. Ir reduction oi organic material ta the groundâ€" by the use of proper fertilizers, barnyard manure and other meansâ€" is all clearly outlined < • • In this connection I might breal is and s%y that the question is oite» asked as to how much more plan food is contained in poultry man ure than in manure from horsei cattle etc. â€" also, does it lessen th. value of manure for It to heat whet in piles. • * * The answer ii that the exai amount of plant food contained i. manures of different animals variei with the bedding or litter it con tains. If each has about the sam« amount of bedding or litter, poul- try manure contains about thro( times as much plant food as that « other sp»Tn«lt mentioned. But muc of the plant food is autimatically di stroycd if any manure is allowed t go through a heat. • • * And now, back to that Bulletin started oS to talk about It's title â€"as I saidâ€" "Life of the Soil." It' number 459 â€" and it's one of manj profusely illustrated and contain log valuable charts, issued by th Department, and available-free e charge â€" to anyone writing from thi province. You simply write th Ontario Department of Agriculturt Publications Branch, Parliameo Buildings, Toronto. If sent out side Ontario t imall charge is madi • • » So why not write â€" right awaj before you forget â€" for your copy « "Life of the Soil." I feel sure youl find It so valuable that you'll bf wanting a lot more of the othet bulletins, also issued "for free." Chance Takers Of the some 20 persons who at- tempted a death-defying stunt ai Niagara Falls between 1359 an< 1928, ten succeeded and lived. Twe men passed through the rapids, one in a barrel and the other by swim- ming witn a life preserver. .Tw« men and one woman, Annie E, Tay- lor, went over the falls, one in i rubber ball and two in barrels. Kai four men and one woman, Marj/ Spelterini walked and periorme* tricks on t 1,100-ft. tightrope stretched from the American to thi Canadian side 185 feet above th* waters of the gorge. W^hy must we have enough mem- ory to recall to the tiniest detaf what has happened to us, and ao4 have enough to remember ho« many times we have tild It to thi same person? â€" La RochefoueauM ISO Missions Equals 14 Pairs of Socks â€" Capt. Harry C. New- some, an Allied flyer en^aeed in the g;reat airlift operation, haa 150 tnissions to Berlin chaked up to his credit. While he waiti for his cargo of coal to be unloaded at Gatow Airport he works on his 14th pair of Argyle plaid socks. Honey and Hank By Seeg «^ i (a-ahhh: ^) â-  %^fSk â- j^C mumM