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Show LEHI FREE PRESS, LEW. UTAH South American Jungles Throb With New Rubber Boom; Scientific Methods Are Used to Protect Native Harvesters Who's News This Week By Delos Wheeler Lovelace Consolidated Features. as Old Industry Revived in Neighboring Tropics; Transportation Biggest Problem Countries Lack Rails and Roads; U. S. Grous Rubber in Miami. had trilled Unlike P. T., New through one In this crucial year of 1943, Latin America will have contribCircus Chief Can hundred and uted more than 50,000 tons of natural rubber to the United States DoOwnWarbling nights for his war industry stockpile, according to estimates compiled from official sources. In 1944, natural rubber production south of the $1,000 per night performance. The new president of Ringling Rio Grande will have doubled, or perhaps exceed 100,000 tons. At Brothers and Barnum and Bailey's the same time U. S. horticulturists announced success in growing swings in front after lifting his own baritone voice in song for many the Ilevea rubber tree in the experimental station at Miami, Fla. Fourteen American republics, besides British Guiana and Trinyears. Robert Ringling was an operatic star, too. And good! "Why idad, have signed agreements with the United States, calling for not?" his mother said when he start- a substantial increase in the cultivation and collection of natural ed in the family business a few Costa Rica, years ago. "He can't go any far- rubber. These nations are Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, NicMexico, El Honduras, in Haiti, ther Ecuador, Salvador, Guatemala, opera." about Brazil In Venezuela. and famalone, Peru of his the aragua, Panama, Taking presidency ily show, Ringling preserves a fam- 50,000 workers have been recruited for the purpose of extracting ily tradition sixty years old and the milky sap from wild rubber trees. over. The seven Ringling brothers, In order to get natural rubber put of whom his father was fifth, rolled if1" their first little acts out of Baraboo, Wis., in 1882. In an era of trusts they got the idea quickly, bought Barnum and Bailey's and finally merged it with their own. Robert Ringling, for upwards of thirty years, watched their performances with no interest at all. Barring four years spent in hobbles after winning a high school football game at the price of broken hip bones, he went right on becoming a singer. He in made his debut at twenty-fiv- e Tampa, Fia. He sang all over Germany, and then with the Chicago Civie Opera. He had a repertoire, count 'em, of 194 roles, the best of them Wagnerian. Since 1839 he has been chiefly with the circus. Age will hardly top him. He is only 46, stocky, bed and quiet. spectacled, And certainly he isn't likely to find a bigger job. He heads up the vastest amalgamation of marvels, mastodons and muscularity man has ever seen. Tarquin the Younger would pop his eyes to see what has grown out of a few simple tricks he thought up 2200 years ago to make a Roman gray-haire- holiday. HERBERT VERE EVATT, Washington now from Australia to talk a few wrinkles out of the troubled state of affairs in the Pa- cinc might He Gave DR. Perhapt Our Boyt Idea of Mixed Marriages alg0 give some first hand evidence about the mixed marriages that American soldiers down under seem to look upon with such high favor. His wife was Miss Mary Alice Shoffer of Iowa. Evatt was a brilliant member of the Australian High Court bench until the war came on and he quit to help more directly in the good fight. He had reached the bench at 36, the youngest man ever appointed to such a court in all the British empire 'Forty-nin- e now, he is recognized as one of the commonwealth's first scholars, historians and ju- a, rists. These last three years he has been a member of Prime 'Minister Labor government, and it is as minister of external affairs that he comes to the United States. This is not his first visit. A lecturer in philosophy and English, he has spoken often at various American universities. Cur-tin- 's MOW that Sir Richard T. D. Ac--A land's Common Wealth party has elected its first man to parliament England's older parties may Totted Hit Wealth fhan worJy To Lett Favored They have Fellow Englithmen been doing so through the four previous in each of which a Common Wealther ran. All four lost, but even so the vote was too close for comfort. d Tall, spectacled, baldish at 37, talks about his new party as though it combined the ripe virtues of the Townsend plan and Louisiana Long's club plus some choice Russian cuttings. "We want," he says, "to amalgamate Russia's economy with our own political system." One of his notions is that millionaires are finished. In himself last proof he February, gave his total interest in 17,000 acres of the storied Lorna Doone country to the National Trust. A cozy $80,000 inherited from his father went into the hopper, too. He proposes to support his wife and two sons on his pay as a member of parliament and his earnings as a writer. He attended both expensive Rugby and more expensive Oxford, but unless he Whips up a best seller pretty soqn, the sons are likely to miss Ac-lan- old-scho- ol both. There have been Aclands in EngFor half that time the family has held a title. Sir Richard is the 15th baronet, of the line. An ancestor, stout royalist, fought the American Revolution. No less than 13 of Sir Richard's living kin have made themselves notable. But for the last two generations the heads of the family have been uneasy in their ease. land for 800 years. of trackless jungles and remote places, new transportation systems making use of donkeys, canoes, jungles. This is in operation with the Institute of Colombian co- Inter-America- n Affairs in Washington, which aids local authorities in the work of hygiene and sanitation. The same procedure has been followed in other countries. steamboats, airplanes, human carriers, etc., have been organized. Medical stations along the routes have lessened, but not eliminated, the hazards which threaten every man who works in the jungles. The natural rubber needed by United States tanks, airplanes, jeeps, artillery, etc., must be extracted from wild and cultivated trees scattered over an area encompassing hundreds of thousands of square miles. In order to protect rubber harvesters against fevers, animals, and insects, the Latin American countries, aided by United States government health officials, have created modern sanitary centers, where preventive medicine is taught and treatment given to rubber collectors and their families. Once Rubber Center. Brazil forests, of course, yield most of this hemisphere's present supply of natural rubber. There, in the Amazon valley, natives first found the gummy substance that plays such, an important part in modern war. Before seedlings of "Hevea Braziliensis" had been exported from Brazil and exploited commercially in the Dutch East Indies and the British Malay Straits Settlements, the Brazilian industry enjoyed a heyday. In order to market their natural rubber, Brazilian promoters had built the costliest railroad in the world. When rubber was a Brazilian monopoly, it fetched as high as three dollars per pound. However, not even in its balmy days did Brazil produce as much rubber (42,400 tons) as it is contributing in 1943 to a United Nations victory. According to the coordinator of Brazilian economy, Joao Alberto Lins de Barros, Brazil in 1943 will produce 45,000 tons of natural rubber; and 1944's estimates Last February an agreement tween the United Sfates and Peru provided that South American republic with an airway system for transporting rubber from the forests to river and seaports. By the end of 1944 it is expected that Haiti will be producing 10,000 tons of natural rubber per annum, which will be marketed by SHADA e de (Societe Agricole), an organization set up by the governments of the United States and Haiti. One hundred thousand acres have been g sown with "cryptostegia," a plant that grows very rapidly. Thousands of Haitians have be- Haitiano-Americain- rubber-producin- test-tub- well-suite- d 7Ti Jo "V I t mi am i men Workers tap the Hevea rubber tree at the U. S. agricultural experimental station at Miami, Fla. The U. S. has experimented with 2,000 species, and satisfactory results have been obtained. call for 75,000 tons. The future holds even greater promise for rubber from South America's largest country. That is been engaged to attend the plantations. "Cryptostegia" originated in Madagascar and reached Haiti in 1912 as a decorative plant. Since then it has spread without assistance over many parts of the island. Combat Leaf Blight. Dr. E. W. Brandes of the U. S. department of agriculture is enthusiastic about the progress made by the Americas in combating rubber plant diseases. The South American leaf blight, he said, is being conquered by development of trees. These hardy trees in turn are being crossed by hand because commercial plantations, similar to those in the Orient, are well on their way to production, and it is anticipated that by 1945 these plantations will yield more rubber than the millions of wild rubber trees in the Amazon valley produce at present. Some Brazilian rubber is transported by airplane from jungle depots to the Atlantic port of Belem, whence it is shipped northward. With the exception of eight or ten thousand tons which Brazil requires for domestic industry, the entire production is exported to the United States. g Among South American nations, Ecuador ranks second. The figures of 1942 production have not been announced, but in 1941, when Brazil produced 17,500 tons, Ecuador yielded 1,500 . disease-resista- pollination with rubber-producin- nt Orien- high-yieldi- tal rubber trees further to improve yields. 'Victory over the leaf disease is a great forward step in the hemisphere's rubber expansion program, tons. said Dr. Brandes. Indians Want Beads. On one of the Ford plantations in The Yumbo Indians, a source of Brazil, a million trees fell victim rubber workers in the Ecuadorian to its ravages, but it was observed forest, are not attracted by money that a few full, leafy canopies of in any form. On the other hand, healthy trees stood out sharply they covet colored beads and maagainst a background of chetes. The Ecuadorean Developneighbors. This meant that the ment corporation understands native blight, carried from tree to tree by tastes and is now supplying the spores, had not infected Yumbos with trinkets and useful ar- them. They were immune. ticles, like scissors, razors, salt, mirScientists then the imrors, and even rifles. mune tops to other trunks and proColombian forests are alreadv duced a disease-resistayielding two tons of rubber daily, plant. The work of developing all by the same air- the resistant tree by the system of planes which supply the workers cross pollination is an arduous task, with their needs. but it is ultimately the best solution In Colombia, rubber exploitation to the problem. It is being done on is supervised by a committee made a large scale in Brazil, where lies up of representatives of the Colom- - the hemisphere's greatest potential bian government, the United States supply of latex. embassy, and the Rubber Reserve Meanwhile horticulturists at the corporation. Federal Plant Introduction Garden, A service of floating hospitals and Miami, Fla., have been experiment dispensaries has been organized to ing witn "home-growrubber look after the rubber workers in the ' trees pest-ridde- n wind-blow- n bud-graft- high-yieldin- g, trans-shippe- Proof that progress has been made was demonstrated recently, by the Bureau of Standards in Washinga pair ton, D. C, which produced of rubber heels from the latex ol "Hevea Brasiliensis" trees growing in Florida. The experiment cost the department of agriculture If ol years of research and thousands rechemists dollars but government comported the quality of the latex Indian. East with pared favorably e rubber In this promising than more are growing plantation Rico, Puerto from Haiti, Hevea 2,000 Mexico and the East Indies. It is the only rubber project on plantation scale ever attempted outside the tropics. Some of the trees are di35 feet high and ten inches in ameter. Tree Survives Florida Clime. For a tree whose natural habitat is in the region of the equator, the Hevea's endurance and adaptability to temperate climate has amazed scientists. Periodic measurements have shown that its early growth has been as rapid in Miami as in Haiti and Mexico. Its resistance to cold weather has been incredible, surviving temperatures as low as 28 degrees. Like many northern trees it has been found to shed its leaves in winter, reducing frost danger and to making it particularly Florida cultivation. The entire rubber reserve has sprung from seeds, many of which were sown nearly two decades ago. After sprouting from seedbeds the young trees were transplanted into deep depressions near the water-tabl- e so the tap roots could find perThe creamy, manent moisture. nt d ' ' n white latex tapped recently was a welcome sight to the botanists who had cared for them so long. Experts have found that trees grown from selected East Indian seeds in the Florida garden has produced a higher yield of latex in general than miscellaneous Hevea from other tropical lands. Experiments in hand pollination have been tried with marked success to determine its possibilities. Two methods of tapping have been tried the half spiral every other day, and the full spiral, every three or four days. The half spiral has proved most desirable, enabling workers to retap over the old scars every seventh year. As in most rubber trees a purer and slightly increased flow of latex is found toward the lower trunk. Technicians do the tapping here. Two grooves are cut into the tree with a regulation tapping knife an oblique cut to start the flow of latex and a vertical channel cut to guide it to the spout which empties into a glass receptacle held to the tree by a wire holder. In the laboratory of the Introduction Garden the chemist coagulates the latex with ascetic acid. It is then rolled, washed and dried, and the samples sent to Washington for study. Operation of the station at Miami has been generally overshadowed by other steps taken to relieve the rubber shortage in the United States. Much publicity has been given to the effort to bring the guayule shrub into cultivation in the Southwest. A variety of chemical compositions have been exploited for their rubbery characteristics. And, of course, there is the government's vast synthetic rubber program,. utilizing oil and grain. well-equippe- d Gardener Should Only . Cultivate to Kill Weeds some oi ine gnei in gardening can be escaped if the gardener realizes that cultivation is needed only to kill weeds, break soil crusts, and to permit water to enter the soil. If the garden is cultivated or hoed often enough to kill the weeds, the other two factors will be automatically accomplished. The weeding job can be done with less labor if cultivation begins when the weeds are small. The grounj should be disturbed little near the plant rows, but the cultivation may go deeper between rows where tramping is likely to pack the soil. Pulling a garden rake lightly across plant rows will help eliminate weeds but some hand work will be required to get all of them. The frequency of cultivation required is determined by the rate of weed growth. In periods of frequent rains and in warm weather, more cultivation is needed. No result other than exercise is obtained from stirring dry, weedless soil. Cultivation should not begin too soon after a rain because moisture will evaporate faster, and lack of water often is a limiting factor in plant growth. Any one of several types of hoes is satisfactory for garden work, and, sometimes it is an advantage to have more than one type. Heavy hoes are best for chopping weeds out of heavy soil, and the pointed hoes are better adapted for opening fur rows for planting seed. ; ft. . Releaaed by Western Newspaper frjoj WNU Release. "M EW YORK. Tremendous old Phineas Taylor. Barnum (P. T. to historians) swung to the head of the circus parade after Jenny Lind , UM 'ill A SERIES Of SPECIAL ARTICLES BYTHELEADIN "..a CORRESPONDEXTSXSg American Submarines By Frank Gervasi (WHU FeituieTbrouih with Colher'M sptciml MTltBftmeBt Wttklj) Dozens of American submarine commanders have made records in the Pacific. Their roster grows every day. There are proportionately more Navy Crosses in the submarine service than in any other branch of the navy, and for this there are many reasons. The submarine is an American weapon, invented and now perfected by Americans. Our men understand what the submarine can do, and ofthey employ it as what it is an fensive weapon of irresistible hitting power. , Most important ol au, nowever, is are that fact that German ordered or "sent" into action in ships lacking even elementary comforts and unequipped with any safe ty devices. Our men "go." They love the submarines, and spend as much time telling you how safe they are "safest ships afloat" as fliers will say in describing the good qualities of our planes. Submariners and fliers are the men I've most weapon-prou- d met in this war. There is evidence of the subma- riners contention concerning me safety of our submarines. Since the war began, the navy has reported the loss of only six undersea boats, including the Argonaut. Submariners Quiet About Exploits. Concerning their exploits, how ever, submariners are mvariaDiy mum, and no matter how well you might be prepared to contend with a submariner's economy of words, his reticence will still surprise you. A quiet "Very well" is the accus tomed acknowledgment of all orders, disasters, communications and missions aboard ship. A torpedoman might come to the control room with news that the aft and the forward torpedo room is flooded, and he would probably obtain from the skipper nothing more than a "Very well." This reticence, however, as admirable as the submariners' courage and ingenuity and calm efficiency, has contributed to the neglect which was the lot of the service until war came. Hidebound naval traditionalists with limited imagination couldn't see the submarine as anything more than an adjunct of the battleships and cruisers. To the naval strategists of yesterday, the submarine represented merely a scouting and observation auxiliary weapon which might, with luck, sometime' surprise and sink an enemy ship. Our Sub Force December 7, 1941. And on December 7, 1941, we had, g for a major sea power, a submarine force. Theoretically we had 113 submarines, with 73 building and 23 more scheduled to be constructed. Actually, however,, there were substantially less than 100 submarines in service. Thirty-fiv- e subs were of the which were found to be unsatisfactory and had been withdrawn for reU-m- WITHOUT FARMS, RANCHES. AMERICA WOULD VANISH HE WAS a prosperous, wpll.f looking individual, beside whom r sat in the lounge car of a tram crossing Nebraska. He told me he liv in New York. From the car window. ws rmiU see the western Nebraska ranch homes. "People who live in such places must be only half human to endure such a life," he said. "For the sake of the nation, and especially in wartime, it is a good thing we have places like New York to depend upon." "The man who lives in that house over there, l replied, as I pointed to a ranch house is one oi tne lungs of America. He rules over a few hundred or a few thousand acres. People of New York and other cities are but his subjects. Without him and his kind your cities would not exist. He supplies the foundation upon which not only the cities, but the nation is built. He thinks more intelligently than do 75 per cent of the people of the cities. He represents the culture of America. He supplies the food, that first essential of both peace and war. He is intensely patriotic. He works whatever number of hours are required 'to do the job in order that you, and your kind, may live. He, and his kind people of the farms and ranches and those of the rural cities and towns through which we are passing, constitute the most valuable 50 per cent of the population of our nation. They, not the people of the cities, represent the real humans of America. People of the cities, that rancher's subjects, would do well to emulate his many virtues and his patriotism." Of course I did not convince the New York gentleman that he and his kind living in the cities were not the first and most valuable citizens of the nation, but I told him a few, plain truths, which I hope he may think about. Without the farms and ranches, there would be no cities, and no America. horse-and-bug- third-strin- fitting.- Out of the total of submarines available for duty, roughly only could be spared for action against the Japanese. With our declaration of war on Japan, the picture changed rapidly, although not fast enough to suit our submariners. In May, 1942, an additional appropriation was made by 0 congress for the construction of tons of submarines which are now coming off the ways in yards on both coasts at a rate surprising to the layman but still unsatisfactory to submarine commanders. one-thi- rd 200,-00- U. S. Subs Sink 82 Jap Ships. Even the publishable figures appear to support their point of view. Up to August of last year, American submarines had sunk or damaged 82 of the 219 Japanese ships sunk by all weapons. This represented 37 per cent of the total. Our submarines accounted for 27 per cent of all enemy warships sunk, and for 60 per cent of all noncombatant shipping sent to the bottom. The submariners' record improved as more boats entered service. The navy department has credited our submarines with having sunk approximately 180 Japanese vessels of all categories. Written down beside the total number of United Nations ships sunk by German the admitted 180 sunk or crippled by our own subs in the Pacific might not seem so star-uuir. xsui every jap ship sent to the bottom represents a proportionately higher loss than the equivalent in American or British tonnage. The reason is simple: The Japs senu supplies to meir overseas troops only when absolutely necessary. , The Jap soldiers fight on less food, medicines and other nonmili-tar- y supplies than their American or British counterparts. ADVANTAGES OF FARM IN 'RATIONED DAYS' IN MANY CITIES you go to the market with the hope of getting something for the family table. It is not a question of selections it is a case of accepting, with thanks, whatever you can get. In limited quantities, you can find canned fruits and vegetables about half the quan- tity the family had in days. In the line of fresh vegetables, you may find one or two varieties, but more often there is none. In meats, you may get a sirloin steak at one time and nothing better than neck bones another, but frequently it will Be none of any kind. You do not ask for beef or lamb or veal or pork. You ask only for meat, and are pleased at your good fortune if you get any. How different on the farm in these war days. Mother canned the fruits and vegetables for the family. , In the cellar are rows of peas, tomatoes, corn and all the other good things produced in the garden. In the bins are potatoes and apples, and on the fruit shelves are peaches, cherries, plums, berries and other fruits, with jar after jar of mother's preserves and jellies. In the barnyard there is always a fat chicken for the family dinner. There is a hog from which can come roast pork, chops, spareribs, bacon and hams, as well as the niakings of sausage. There is lamb and veal and beef. You have eggs when you want them and as many as you want. You eat butter on your bread, the kind of butter onlv mother can make, and you do not have to be satisfied with oleomargarine, or per haps nothing. That old wood heater and tne kitchen cookstove filled with the product of the wood lot provide the degree of heat you enjoy and you need not shiver with the thermometer limited to 60 or 65 degrees. Under anv conditions, there are many compensations for those living on the farms, but hard as the war rationings are for all of us, the tarm families have the best of it in many ways. They do not have to carefully count rationing points in ordor to determine what they will eat if they can get it. HELP IT IS REMARKABLE what even a few square feet of ground can do in alleviating the food shortage. Last year four tomato plants in a space of two by ten feet provided practically all the tomatoes the family needThe ed throughout the summer. space between the curb and sidewalk in front of your home would provide much of the vegetable supply for the summer. YOU CAN TWO METHODS OUR WAR EFFORT might have been equally successful had we started with the purpose of maximum production at the lowest possible cost, instead of maximum production at the highest possible rest. Out of such a program we would not have had the serious danger ol inflation; we would not have made millionaires of labor racketeers; we would not have ahead the long yea" of "sweat and tears," while we pay off, during a deflation period, the terrific debts we contracted. |