University of South Carolina Libraries
Industry ls Rapidly Gaining Favor in Several of Northern States of Country. MANY ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY Best Location for Farm ls Where Winters Are Cold and Opportunity Offered to Develop Fur-Big Price for Pelts. . (Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) Fox farming is fast gaining favor in the United States. The industry, barely known a decade ago, is fairly common in some states of the northern tier, is represented in all states in this tier and in that next to it, and' is growing rapidly. There is money in it for the raiser who starts modestly, lennis the business, and then expands his holdings. There are losses in store for the type who starts with a big ranch, no knowledge of the business, and only a desire for quick profits. At the present time the Industry ls undergoing a process of stabilization. Most fox farmers raise animals for breeding purposes, and comparatively few have adjusted the business to a pelt basis. All told, there are between 10,000 and 15,000 silver foxes being grown in captivity on American fox farms at this time. Many Animals in Canada. Such are some of the conclusions of a representative of the biological survey, United States Department of Agriculture, who has just returned to Washington after an extensive inves tigation of American fox farms and A Silver Fox. the methods of their operation. In Canada, where the industry originated, and especially on Prince Edward is land,- where there are approximately 15,000 foxes in captivity, fox farming is conducted on a much more extensive scale than in the United States. Its promise of good financial returns to those willing to master its problems, give 'indication .that within a compara tively short time in this country it will rival in proportions the Industry in Canada. The best location for a fox farm Is where the winters are cold and the fox may have opportunity to develop fur in keeping with the needs of the climate. The Industry is thus confined by climatic conditions to the northern states. Therfe the raising of foxes for breeding and for the fur markets flour ishes. Most of the foxes raised in captivity are on farms, or "ranches," - with pens for from 25 to 50 pairs, al though in occasional instances the ranches are much larger, containing pens for as many as 150 pairs. The foxes generally breed in Janu ary and February and the young are born within 52 days. A pair of foxes raises one family a year, the number of young varying from one to ten, though rarely exceeding five or six. Most of the fox raiser's troubles come when the young are a few weeks old and ave peculiarly susceptible to at tacks from worms. Great care is nec essary to carry the young foxes through this period. Most Foxes Sold for Breeding. It is not advisable to kill a fox for the pelt before IS months of age for at that time its fur is more valuable than at a younger age. Comparative ly few of the foxes raised on Ameri can, ranches are sold at the present time, however, for their pelts. Mos; of the ranchmen obtain higher values than the worth of the' pelt by selling the live animals for breeding purposes. A good pelt may fetch as much as $601). though the average is much lower, approximating ?250 to .$350. The furs are comparatively little known be cause of their rarity. Silver foxes vary from those in which the color is entirely silver to those in which it . is entirely black except for some white-banded hairs on the back and rump. In the black fox the white Is absent from all parts except the tip | of the tail, which is generally white in all phases of the animal. PROVIDE DUCKS WITH WATER Wher^ Supply ls Lacking Fowls Gum Up About Eyes, Become List? ' less and Die. A duck must have water about Its head and eyes dally or It will not thrive. However, If? tank of suflicient depth is provided'for the ducks to sink their heads In the water clear ont of sight when they drink, then they can do without,a pond or stream of running water. When they have no water f ? all, ducks often gum up about the eyes, become listless, sit about, don't eat and soon die. SIDELIGHT ON SYRIAN LIFE Writer Gives an Insight Into His Life as a Small Boy in That Little Known Country. The roads were open. Travelers came Into our village. Scarcely a night was the guest house in our court yard unoccupied. I liked to sit with ray father and his guests in this room, built after European style with four large windows over which in winter oiled paper was passed to keep the cold out. The walls of the guest room were white and on them were hung the choicest rugs brought back from Kurdistan by my Grandfather Mirza. There were chairs in this room. I was *ery proud that we should own chairs, but I found them most uncom fortable to'Sit on. After a few mo ments my legs began to ache and I slipped down on the cushions. In the alcove of the guest chamber were some old manuscripts bound in course leather. They were holy books with il luminated margins. Among tnera was a Bible in Syriac. I carefully retrained from touching lt. It was too holy. I might perhaps be struck deud for my temerity. Among the travelers that came along the road was Hady, the singer. He was the ugliest man that I had ever seen, sore-eyed, pock-marked and dirty. But he was very wise. His Ivory han dled dagger in its silver sheath was so long that lt reached from his chest to his hips. My playmates and I would have laughed and jeered at him, per haps, lt he had not carried this dag ger.-Youel B. Mlrza In Asia Maga zine. BARGAIN AT $30 A MONTH Chinese Boy With "Exceptional Knowl edge of English" Should Have Been Snapped Up Quickly. The following application for em ployment was received by a Shanghai hong from a student In the Shanghai college: "Nothing Is of less importance than the age of a person; nevertheless, lt is proper to begin that I am in my twenty-first year. Having a firing am bition to do some service in the busi ness world, I grasp this opportunity I to insert myself into the sphere. It is true that many are now wandering Idly in the market awaiting employ ment. But It is true to the same ex tent that many of these, if not all, are .good for nothing. To take notice upon them, or to put some duty upon them is to give gun powder to children as a plaything. The danger can be imag ined. "I ara now going to give some ac count of ray personal abilities. It is not too much to say that my knowl edge of English can hardly be repre sented to the full color by such a little adjective as 'thorough.' It is excep tionally excellent, to be outspoken. As to the art of typewriting, my hands go on as smoothly as to skate on an icy river. With such intellectual weapons any hard duties can be as easily conquered as an egg shell by a wave. The salary I look for would be ?30 a month. "Awaiting your answer earnestly. I am. Slr, -."-North China Ga zette. Robin ls Inventor. The robin lives in trees and part ly on the ground, so that it some times hops, like birds that live in trees, and sometimes walks or runs, like birds that live on the ground. The robin is a plucky little fellow. He will stand up for himself, and refuses to let other birds put upon him. Generally he lives alone-some times with a mate, but never do you find robins in flocks. This little bird can claim to be the inventor of pottery. Look at a robin's nest and you will see that it is a clay pot, set into a pile of straw. When a robin has fin ished with a nest, take it and put it on the .fire, having first thoroughly dried it. Leave it on the fire until all the straws have been burnt, and if it lias not broken, you will find that you have a perfectly good earthen pot. -Pearson's Weekly. Peculiar Manx Cats. The origin of Manx eats is now at tributed to the arrival of these cats on the Isle of Man from ships belong ing to the Spanish armada that were wrecked there. They were probably brought from Japan or eustern Asia. They are a distinct species with short forelegs, and elevated hindquarters, and differ from oilier cats somewhat in call, ways, and character. They vary in color. People who have owned them for long periods say they are not good mousers or hunters. In character they are rather similar to a dog. being high ly companionable and.having some of the qualities of a guardian, but they are not considered hunters in any sense of the word. Sense of Obligation. "What a wonderful thing lt would be if Shakespeare were alive todayV "I wish he were," said Mr. Stonn ington Barnys, earnestly. "I should like to meet him. I'm sure he would be very grateful to me for the manner in which I have interpreted his po etry." Her Present Occupation. "You say that your wife went to col lege before you married her?" "Yes, she did." "And she thought of taking up law, you iii IV" . "Yes ; but now she's satisfied to jaj lt down." TESTING AIR IN OLD MINE Of AM Methods, the Lowering of a Miner's Safety Lamp ls Acknowl edged to Be Safest. Raising and lowering a bucket sev eral times, to bring into a long-disused mine fresh air from the surfnce, is common practice. Methane .may be expected in abandoned shafts or pits driven in coal measures or carbona ceous slates, or where a heavily tim bered shaft Is partly filled with wa ter. If methane is suspected, it ii best to lower nothing but a miner's safety lamp. If the light is not extinguished, rhe descent cnn be considered reason ably safe. When no safety lamp is available, and lt ls necessary to test with an open light, care should be taken io immediately withdraw all persons in close proximity to the sh-'ft or pit as there may be an explosion. Generally, there ls no physiological warning of oxygen deficiency in the air. The first deciden; feelmg ls one of extreme weakness accompanied by diz ziness, better described as partial paralysis, and the victim collapses practically without warning. To guard against this danger, a man should not enter old workings without having a rope tied around his body and at least. two men on the top. The rope should be kept taut. Then if a distress signal is given, the explorer will not only be prevented from falling, but can be quickly pulled to fresh air and his life saved. RELICS OF AGES LONG PAST England Has Three of the Most Re markable That the Whole World Has to Offer. A loaf of bread more than GOO years old, It is said, is to be found at Ambas ton, in Derbyshire, England. It was Included in a grant of land from the crown In the reign of King John, and has remained in the Soar family ever since. \ Almost us great a curiosity as this ls a house \100 years of age, and yet fit for habitation. This old dwelling, the oldest inhabited house in England, was built in the time of King Offu of Mercla. It is octagonal In shape, the walls of Its lower story being of great thickness. The upper part Is of oak. At one time the house was fortified and known by the nanie of St. Ger man's Gate. It stands close to the River Ver, and only a few yards from St. Albans abbey. A marriage proposal 3,400 years of age is In existence In the British museum. It is the oldest marriage proposai of which there is any definite record. It consists ef about ninety eight lines of very fine cuneiform writ ing, and is on a small clay tablet made of Nile mud. It is a marriage pro posal of a Pharaoh for the hand of the daughter of the king of Babylon. It was written ubout the year 1530 B. C. Making the Hammer Safer. The hammer is a useful tool, but Its use Is not quite free from danger to the user or from injury to materials. The fiat, highly polished surface Is likely to glance off the nail unless "the blow is squarely delivered; and when the nail ls of cast metal, Its head often flies off and inflicts quite severe Injuries. . One firm had innumerable accidents from this cause, and some of the men were permanently injured. Thereupon, the managers tried hammer heads with scored faces as an experiment, and owing to the success of the experi ment, the polished faced hammer has been abolished in that firm's factory, except for special classes of work. When the hammer's face is scored or roughened it is very much less likely to glance off the nail head. The fact that this type of hammer has proved so conspicuously successful and safe, has encouraged many manufac turers to place it on the market. The Beaver. A family that figures prominently in the annals of New York owes the origin of its great wealth to a hum ble but Industrious rodent, the beaver. The same rodent has conferred Its name upon a downtown street in that city. There survives the tradition of a Beaver brook that once meandered its picturesque way through what is now the downtown section. But the beaver himself ls a van ished species in this .country. The beavers that inhabit the little ponds In the zoological gardens are Immi grants from Canada. In these restricted ar'eas, surround ed by high wire fences, these citizens by adoption are a? busy as were^their ancestors who once ranged along the streams that watered the woods. -Chicago Journal. Could Drink a Big Fog. It takes a big block of fog to make one good swallow of water,' says Dr. W. J. Humphreys of the United States weather bureau at Washington. The densest fog off Newfoundland banks contains some twenty thousand drop lets in a cubic Inch, Dr. Wells and Dr. Timms of the bureau of standard.' found. To get one gulp of water enough fog to fill a space 3 feet by fi feet by 100 feet long would have tr: be condensed. In a fog of that size there are GO trillion particles of WUUT or three timos as many particles a the number of dollars spent by till United States during the world war "It would take about a half hour ti count a*' inch of fog pnrtlrh's " snv.? Pr. ".Ii ..iphre/s. "placed side by ?Uh 2,000 to H.Oi.'O droplets would be a?edei) .to till that lergth." National Industrial Conference Report Says Problem War rants Deep Study. MANY WHO WILL NOT WORK Factors Entering Into Relatipns Be tween Employers and Workers Emphasized-Average Worker Loses 42 Days a Year. New York.-Unemployment Is a continuous industrial problem, suffi cient in Importun?e to warrant con certed effort by economists and busi ness men to remove certuin of its causes, is the stand taken by the na tional Industrial conference board, In a report on "The Unemployment Prob lem." The report gives a comprehen sive survey of the exteut of unem ployment during normal periods and during the present business depres* sion, discusses the causes and analyzes remedies- suggested. The object of this study is to set forth fundamental principles to be tak en into account in considering the problem, derived from analysis of data and experience, and from basic eco nomic considerations, in order to pro vide a guide by which employers or organizations may approach their un employment problems more Intelli gently. "The report," says a statement from the board, "makes a careful distinc tion between Idleness and unemploy ment, which refer to very different causes. Idleness proceeds from three principal sources: Unwillingness to work on the part of those who Are capable of.performing work; disabil ity, physical or mental, of otherwise willing workers, and /lastly, unemploy ment of those who are .capable and willing to work, but cannot find work because of Industrial maladjustments within the plant or industry, or be cause of general economic conditions nt home or abroad. Causes of Unemployment The statement then takes up tbe causes of unemployment. They fall into two classes, described In the re port as fol lom's: 1. Internal causes arising from con ditions within individual manufactur ing plants. -These embrace: (a) Personal factors such as strikes and lockouts, and disability; (b) im personal factors relating either to failures of management, resulting v In faulty factory organization, to high production costs within the control of management, ineffective sales methods, lack of materials and equipment, high labor turnover, or to failure of em ployees because of inefficiency, or to the displacement of hand labor by machinery. In the aggregate these causes pro duce a more or less continuous per centage of unemployment from month to month and from year to year. 2. External causes due to influence^ operating outside of the plant. These are: (a) Of economic origin, rosulting from seasonal variations, business de- j pressions, wasteful systems of com modity distribution, deficient labor placement facilities; (b) of political origin, due to immigration and tariff policies and international relation ships, "It is estimated," the statement says, 'that in 1920 the total, number of per sons engaged in gainful occupations in the United States was about 41,000, UOO. Most of the available employ ment statistics pertain to wage-earners in the groups of manufacturing and mechanical industries, which numbered, in 1020, about 12.SU0.000. During nor mal times, 'it is estimated that about l.SW.OOO of these are out of work, since, on the average, about 42 days per year, or about 14 per cent of his total working time, ls-lost by each in dustrial wage-earner. About seven days of this lost time ls due to sick ness. Deducting this, the total loss caused by unemployment of tre aver age wage-earner in the louted States is about 35 -days a year. This does not include loss from part-time employ ment, for which no reliable figures are to be had. Days of Unemployment. "The average of 35 days does not apply to every industry, for the work ers in many industries are subject to longer periods of unemployment, while in others the average is low. The report estimates that more than one-quarter of the industrial wage earners were out of work on June 1, 1921* representing an estimated v>tal of 3,500,000 persons. Many concerns, the report says, are Inventing means to better arrange ments within their plants affecting the cause of unemployment attributed to personal and Impersonal factors within the establishment. Better methods and more thorough organlf.ntion to reduce friction and to develop Industrial co operation between employers and em ployees are being tested In many In dustries. The report points out that in attempting to remedy the causes of unemployment attrlbutoil to Influences operating outside the plant, there ls need for,more adequate system of col lecting and disseminating information showing the ti-end of prices, the actual cost of operation and revenues from industry. "Such a system." It is sold, "will nf?o*tl a reliable bhsls nf com r>nnr >r -.ffhin plants nt different timen and between individual plants In th? industry as a whole." PLUM BRANCH, V C., February 6, 1922. (SPECIFICATIONS :-QUALITY: All Ties shall be free from any defects that may impair their strength or durability. Ties (shall not have sap wood rriore than two inches wide on top of tie between twenty and forty inches from the middle. All ties shall be straight, well manufactured, cut square at the ends, have top and bot tom parallel ano! have bark entirely removed. All Ties must be 8 feet and 6 inches long. White and Post Oak i ' . Grade 1 JGrade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Size 6x6 Size 6x7 Size 6x8 Size 7x8 Size 7x9 80c. . 40c. 60c. 70c. 80c. Your particular attention is called to the fact that a piece of timber must square the above sizes in order to make the grades, and that it will be more economical in getting all grade lives, if possible, and by all means cut out ones and twos. Inspection will be made and cash paid as ties are hauled in and properly placed on Charleston- & Western Caro lina Railway Company's Right-of-Way at Plum Branch, S. C. Prices subject to change without notice. R. iH. WINN Plum Branchy 5. C. Special Excursion Fares -VIA Southern Railway System .ACCOUNT Mardi pr?s Celebrations Mobile. Ala. New Orleans, La. Pensacola, Fla. February 27-28, 1922 Tickets on sale February 25 to 28 inclusive at one and one-half times the regular one-way fare, limited to reach original starting point prior to midnight March 7, 1922. Extension of final limit may be had until midnight March 22 by presenting ticket to agent and payment of fee of $1.00. For detailed information concerning fares and sched ules call on ticket agents. SOUTHERN RAILWAY SYSTEM Large Stock of Jewelry to Select From I Wc invite our Edgefield friends to visit our store o when in Augusta. We have the largest stock of DIAMONDS ) WATCHES CLOCKS JEWELRY CUT GLASS AND SILVERWARE % of all kinds that we have ever shown. It will be a pleasure to show % you through our stock. Every department is constantly replenished g with the newest designs. , S We call especial attention to our repairing department, which has Q every improvement. Your watch or clock made aa good as new. ? Work ready for delivery in a .short time. g A. J. REIN KL 980 Broad St. Augusta, Ga. o EAGLE "MlKADO'^t^^^Penc? No. 1.74 For Sale at your Dealer Made in five grades ASIC FOI? TKZ YELLOW PENCIL WITH THE RED BAND EAGLE MIKADO EAGLE PENCIL COMPANY, NEW YORK }