OCR Text |
Show U. S. Is Now a Reservoir For European Livestock Fine Breeds of Cattle and Horses Are 1 . j Shipped Here to Protect Them fl Nj From Results of War. f-j J By BAUKHAGE National Farm and Home Hour Commentator. WNU Service, 1343 n Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. The tall hostess with the spiked head-dress who gets the first look at America's new arrivals (I mean Miss Liberty, of Bedloe's island, New York harbor) has seen some strange sights lately. Some of the anxious shiploads that pause at her doorstep hurrying westward have brought a tear, some a worried frown, some a hopeful smile. There was one group of refugees, proud yet humble servants of man, huddled below decks. Miss Liberty could not see them. Had she been able to, she would have dipped her torch in welcome. For the war has brought to America Amer-ica some of the finest bloodstrains of horses and cattle from the bomb-riddled bomb-riddled fields and pastures of Europe. Eu-rope. Today, this nation holds no greater great-er treasure, in the deep vaults where the gold bullion is stored, than is sheltered in barn and stable. Some of the great breeds of livestock, which have been all but wiped out In Europe, are preserved here. Best Reservoir. "The United States now has the best reservoir of blooded livestock in the world," said a department of agriculture official to me the other day. The two tiny segments of English Eng-lish soil which the Nazis have taken from the British and the only two, so far held some of the finest dairy stock in the world: the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, in the English Eng-lish channel. When the British withdrew with-drew they gave the islanders a chance to get out to go to England. Some of the herdsmen preferred to - stay with their herds. What has happened to those herds now we cannot can-not learn. We do know that many have been slaughtered for food or because they could not be fed. But just before that happened 100 head of the best Jersey breeding stock were sent over to the United States. And before the bombs began to rain too thickly on England the British Brit-ish did- what they had never done before they exported to this country coun-try a number of thoroughbred horses, some of their finest racing stock which has never before been permitted to leave the islands, at any price. This stock, stallions and mares both, has been sold and delivered de-livered to wealthy American owners. Great Draft Horses. What happened to the great draft horses of France and Belgium, whose strains are already well established es-tablished in America, is not known. Many, it is reported, were slaughtered slaugh-tered because of lack of fodder to support them. Many were used for food, for even in the piping days of peace the continental has no prejudice preju-dice against "steak equine." Now, America can boast all the pure-blood strains horses, sheep, cattle, hogs, and poultry. From now on, instead of being chiefly an importer, im-porter, as we have been from the days when the first Spaniard brought in that strange animal that terrified the Aztecs, the horse, the Western hemisphere will be an exporter of blooded stock. When the American farmer stands among his herds or flocks, or his wife admires her chicken yard, they often forget that the only livestock which lives and breathes on this continent whose ancestors were not immigrants is the turkey. No wonder won-der Benjamin Franklin thought it ought to be our national bird, instead in-stead of the eagle, borrowed from the imperial Caesars. Today, there are more Holstein cows in the United States than fleck with black and white the fields of the province from which that prize milk-giver gets its name. As a matter mat-ter of fact we hav the world's record rec-ord Holstein producer of milk and butter. Other Bovine Breeds. And we have all the other bovine breeds here, too. Ayreshires have long been familiar figures on American Amer-ican farms even the red Danish cattle and the brown Swiss are as much at home here as some of their better known sisters. It is not that America lacked noble no-ble blood among its herds or flocks before the war it simply means that the animal aristocracy has escaped the firing squad of the totalitarians. We have now become the greatest treasurehouse of the world's blooded stock. As a matter of fact, the 700.000 cows and bulls which have long made up America's card-catalogued nobility need bow before no foreign bovine. These 700,000 whose record is kept with the co-operation of their owners, by the department of agriculture, now produces 325 pounds of butter fat per cow per year, against a figure of 169 pounds, which is the average for the rest of cowdom. Action on Iceland Startled Washington Washington was startled when on 20 minutes' notice the President announced an-nounced that marines had landed in Iceland. It should not have been. Secretary of the Navy Knox had said it was time for more aid to Britain. The President would not comment on that statement He just acted. So I won't be surprised to hear that familiar phrase "the marines have landed" anywhere from Cape Town to Singapore. The next step will not be war either, ei-ther, in administration eyes. There may be shooting. But shooting won't mean a declared war for some time. Not while Germany is tied up in Russia, anyhow. General Marshall's request for permission to send troops outside the Western hemisphere does not mean he is grooming an expeditionary expedition-ary force for Europe. There are several reasons. There is no place to land troops in Europe. An expeditionary force without armored divisions is N.' G. An armored division is N. G. without with-out repair, replacement and supply bases. To make an expeditionary force against Hitler it would be necessary nec-essary to move Pittsburgh to France. U. S. Surplus Agency Gathers Food Supplies Reports to the department of agriculture ag-riculture indicate that if all of the food available in the British Isles were divided up, the British people would be on about one-third of their normal ration. In the last three months the Surplus Sur-plus marketing administration of the department of agriculture has bought more than $300,000,000 worth of foodstuffs. A part of this is destined des-tined for Britain. How much has actually reached there even officials of the department do not know but they do know that more ships are being made available for this purpose pur-pose than when the lend-lease bill became law. What is not sent to Britain, Milo Perkins, Surplus Marketing administrator, admin-istrator, explains, is being used by needy families and hungry children, here. Thanks to scientific advances it is now possible to produce enough food "to go round." "Up until the last few years, man has always lived in civilizations in which there was not enough to go round," said Mr. Perkins. "Today, with our capacity to produce, it's physically possible to provide a decent de-cent living standard for all of our people. That's the most important material thing that's happened to the human race since the discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel." Memories of an Old 'Opera House' Washington's "Opera House" is going. It is a long time since actors ac-tors trod its boards, since its "Ambassador's "Am-bassador's tier" glittered with the jeweled ladies of the diplomatic set. For years it was known as the "Be-lasco "Be-lasco theater," one of the most attractive at-tractive playhouses in the country. Of late it has been a movie house. On my way back across Lafayette Lafay-ette park the other day I glanced up at its sad facade doors closed, windows blank. And it was then, for the first time in all the 27 years that I have passed it or entered its portals that I noticed the words "Opera "Op-era House" engraven above them. I walked over and looked at the plaque on the wall, which I had never read before. It said: On this site Commander John Rogers built an elegant house in 1831. In it on April 14, 1865, an attempt was made to assassinate assassi-nate W. H. Seward, secretary of state, by one of the conspirators who murdered Abraham Lincoln on the same night. The "opera house" will be soon torn down along with its two neighbors neigh-bors on the east side of the park. One is the beautiful Tayloe mansion man-sion with its graceful doorway and wistaria-clad grill work. It was built in 1828. Later, in the McKinley regime, re-gime, it was called the "3ttle White House" because Sen. Mark Hanna, the power behind the throne in those days, lived there. The Tayloe house, with the Dolly Madison home next door, for years have formed the Cosmos club, recently re-cently sold to the government and awaiting demolition. |