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^ -I \ ^ -* T .-â-  -^ i^ â- ^. ^' â-  »â-  T' T •1 >» â- ^ ^ ^ The Big, Big Apple â€" Enough to turn any youngs ter pie-eyed is this 450-pound whopper displayed at the Railroad Fair in honor of International Apple Day. Dickie Powers, 7, and Jessie Bustow, 9, gaze hungrily at the ponderous pastry, billed modestly as the "world's bigfarest apple pie." Ten bushels of apples went into 'its makingf.» /5hopt5wJ<V Inffectiout Laugh By Uidiari HUl WUkiaam It wu Ethan Pryor'g laughter that firtt attracted Abigail to him. When Ethan laughed, every one •be laughed. The sound had that mirthful, appealing quality that wai Infectious. It ytsa good to hear. It gare yon a feeling of well being. This all happened in 1929, when Bthan'i retail antique businets wai netting him $15,000 a year. It wa« «asy to laugh then. They were a jolly couple. In 1931, Ethan's retail antique business dropped off from one-half its top amount to one-third, then to one-quarter. ♦ That year passed and the next The Pryors didn't find it so easy to laugh. They gave up their seven- room apartment and moved into a less expensive one. In January of 1934 they moved into a single room in an unfashionable part of the city. Ethan was making barely enougli to keep them from starving. Abigail hunted for a week and eventually won for herself a job. It wasn't much of a job. She sat behind a glass window all afternoon and evening selling tickets for a stock company performance. The stock company wasn't' doing so well. It looked as though it might (old up any 4ay. But it paid $15 a week and would have to do until the could get something better. Inspired, a little ashamed, Ethan went job hunting himself. He hunt- ad a week, two weeks, without success. He began to brood. Abigail did her best to cheer hiranip, to get him into a happy frame of mind. "Let's hear the old laugh ring out, darling. A pleasant frame of mind is half the battle." She sat on the arm of his chair. "Tell you what. Let's celebrate. Let's take $5 and go down to Tony's. We can have a gay time for a change." They went to Tony's. They 4rank wine and ate a big dinner. "They danced. They sat and watched the floor show. It wasn't a bad floor •how. Among other things, there was a comedian. The comedian was sad. He wasn't funny. But Abigail laughed. She laughed as though she thought he was tremendously funny. Ethan looked at her. A fond light came into his eyes. She was trying to be gay. She was doing all she could to bolster up his spirits. He could at least help. Ethan laughed. It was the old time, mirthful, appealing laughter. It rolled out and filled the room. Others heard It. Others laughed. They couldn't help it They laughed with Ethan. The comedian was in- spired. After the show, a man came up and sat down at Ethan's and Abi- gail's table. Abigail introduced him as the owner of the stock company show where she sold tickets. His name was Jones. "Listen," said Mr. Jones, "we'll pay you $5 a night to come and laugh at our show. It's supposed to be a funny show. You can put it acros." Ethan scratched his chin. Ht looked at Abigail. He said: "Well, I dunno. For $40 a week, I might aonsider it." "Sold!" said Mr. Jones. Ethan looked at his wife when "Well, I guess wt laughed our way through that depression." he got home. "You planned it!" h« accused. "Sure," said Abigail. "When you have something, it should be cashed in on. You can laugh your way to riches, my dear." Times were getting better. Pec«)U were buying auiiquei. ^y the be- ginning of 1936, he was doing quite well. That summer he enlarged his shop. "Well," said Abigail, happily, "I guess we laughed 'bur way through that depression all right." Ethan kissed her. Then he threw back his head and began to laugh. He laughed loud and long. "There!" he said, "that laugh isn't going to cost any one a cent From now on I laugh because I want to and free of charge. Honey, I love you I" "Ditto," said Abigail. â€" By HaroM Arnttt HBRE'S AN IDEA FOR. A COMFORTABLE MWW SFAT: SlMPL-Y REMOVE TH« ROCKERS OF AN OLD ROCKJNG- CHAIR., IN- VERT THEM, ANP SCREW THEM TO THE TOP AFTER SAVVINO OFF TWe REAR Oisles â-º >â- <â-  Changing Of The Guard Every morning at 10.30 ever since 1660 the mounting of the' Sover- eign's Guard has taken place in Lon- don. In 1939 the full dress uniforms were put away in favour of khaki battledress but this summer' they have been restored and the Chang- ing of the Guard in all its glory now takes place as before. When the King is in London the Guard is mounted at Buckingham Palace; when he is out of town it is mount- ed from the Colour Court of St James's Palace, both perfect set- tings for the red coats and black bearskins of the Guards. The Changing of the Guard is a unique and stirring ceremony that visitors to London are always anx- ious to see. Even in bad weather it nearly always draws a sprinkling of sightseers and in summer, 'in the streets behind the Palace, dozens of motor coaches draw up and from them pour streams of eager tourists, each party with an omniscient guide to explain the significance and his- tory of the Changing of the Guard. The crowd watching the historic ceremony often consists of a couple of thousand people, who press again^ the railings of the Palace courtyard, crowd the steps of the Victoria Memorial that fac^ it and stand along the kerb. Americans, Europeans, British subjects from every part of the Commonwealth as well as people from all over the United Kingdom are there, the most junior members of the crowd perch- ed high on their fathers' shoulders. As the new Guard, preceded bjr its regimental band, comes swing- ing into the courtyard, hundreds of cameras click into action. Pictures of the Guards marching with the precision for which they are famous, a precision which seems as though their legs are controlled by a mas- ter switch and could not possibly be motivated by separate men, arc not the only ones taken. It is al- most a matter of routine fqj: visit- ors to stand at the side of a Palac* policeman or an impassive guards- man outside his sentry box, wllilst another member of the party takes a pictorial record of the occasion. Re- cently a small kilted Scots girl was persuaded to stand there, a stance •he was loath to take up, for a red coated soldier wearing a huge bear- skin and holding a fixed bayonet was a terrifying companion for a five-year-old and one she could not stomach without the physical as well as moral support of her mother. World Rain Shortage Now Hot Stuff Two buzzards were lazily wing- iag over the Arizona desert when a jet-propelled plane suddenly went hurtling by, its exhausts belching flame and smoke. The buzzards »ilenitly watohed It disappear into the Western sky, and then one of them found his voice. "Holy f«r- rion," he said. "Was that bird in a hiurry!" "Listen, Lucius." opined the other, "you'd be in a hurry too If your tail was on fire." Efficiency is getting other peoplt to do the jobs you don't like. If you imagine the earth as a 10-inch ball, then all life is sup- ported inside a film of air and water about two thousandths of an inch thick. This relatively thin sheet is fluid with clearly defined currents of air. A. small change in them, and fertile land would become desert, or vice versa. The great Sahara desert for in- stance, is merely an area over which flow currents of air that are very dry. Hence little or no rainfall. If it were possible to deflect south- wards over this area some of the moist currents coming from the polar regions, it would get a normal rainfall. But if we increase the rainfall m one place we decrease it in another. It wouldn't do to make the Sahara fertile if at the same time we turned Great Britain, and possibly France and most of Europe, into desert .\nd even if we were able to dis- tribute evenly the rain falling on the land surfaces of the world, there would not be sufficient to make all countries fertile. There is just not enough water in the atmosphere to go around. z With the rapid increase in the world's population, this is a serious business. World population is in- creasing at approximately thirty mil- lions annually. Unless tremendous advances are made in irrigation schemes and bet- ter farming methods, many millions will starve, since there will not be the rain available to make fertile enough ground on which their food must be grown. The development of new conti- nents, such as Australia, is vitally bound up with this question of rain- farll. In .\ustralia the limit set by some experts, on account of the rainfall, is a population of thirty millions. Yet there is room in terms of land for twenty times that num- ber. StiUDo Albert â€" "I like to think of olden times when women would tit by the hour beside their spinning Wheels." Filbert â€" "They still do, until •ome man comes along and puts their chains on." PASMFBQNT A week or so ago, I wrote a rather depressing account of what damage grasshoppers are doing over in some of the western States, aivd how the farmers in California and ot+ier coast districts were fear- ing that the pests would finally reach there and do untold millions of dollars' damage. • » » N'ow, from our own Midwest oomes word of how a very similar menace was foreseen and â€" if no< completely wiped out â€" at least largely controlled. 1 think some of you miacht be interested in hearing about w!:at happened. It certainly illustrates the value of those twin virtues, preparedness and co-opera- tion. • « * Last fall, entomological surveys of Western Canada grain lands in- dicated 1949 would see one of the worst grassl-.opper plagues' in the history of the Prairie Provinces. This was grim news to the farmers oi Manitoba. Saskatchewan and Alberta. • « • Fcr they know the grasshopper well. They recalled other years when the winged invaders came: great areas of lush countryside ren- dered completely barren as if the farmers themselves had carried out a scorched earth policy: empty grain elevators; empty pocketbooks and complete desperation. « « « During previous plagues, little was accomplished to halt the vora- cious insect horde. W'arnings of in- festations often came too late. In- adequate methods were used to de- stroy the attackers. Destruction to crops was usually complete. • » » This year, matters were different. After la»t year's plague, teams of entomologists went out in the fiey to determine the degree of infesta- tion by counting grasshopper eggs. They found millions of them. They charted maps showing the extent of Infestations in various areas of the provinces. They passed on Che in- formation to the people. • * < Then the battle really began! Agricultural chemists came out with two new letlia! poisons far superior to those used previously. Industry made these available to Western farmers in great quantifies. Provincial governments made them available to farmers through their municipalities. « • * A flood of educational publicity was turned loose early in the year in the press, on tihe radio, through lectures by local agricultural repra- sentatives. Every Westerner was so grasshopper-conscious by the time the 'hoppers hatched, they knew exactly what to do to stem the in- vasion. And they did it! « * « From latest available reports, the invasion has been repelled. It i* true that some damage has been done, hut only a small fraction of what was anticipated. It is t+ie first time a grasshopper plague has been successfully curbed in Can- ada. « • • Which should be about enough for one session, except for tiiis yarn which you may not have heard be- fore â€" or anyway, recently. It'^ about a bunch of race track men wtio were holdmg a session one evening and lying â€" as such charac- ters sometimes doâ€" about tlie won- derful liorses they'd owned or bred. One tall tale led to another until an old "Kentucky Colonel" came out with an anecdote that topped all: « * * "1 rememl)er, suh. a race of 16 thoroughbreds in which my mare. Honeysuckle. participated. The stake was $300,000. Gentlemen who owned the best horse tlesh in all the South were present, not to men- tion a few Yankees. Well, suh. Honeysuckle was leading the field, which was no surprise to me, wheo on the backstretch I noticed her hesitate. .\nd then and there she had herself a foal. I had bred her the year before, but didn't know she was foaling." .^t his point, someone in (he audience sympathized and said. "Tougih way to lose a race." "Who said anything about los- ing?" the good Colonel concluded. "Honeysuckle never lost. She had her foal. Then she won the race by five lengths." ".\nd," he added, "the foal cam* in second." The raving beauties in thesa beauty contests include the losers. YOUNG FARMER DRAGS TWO FROM CRASHED AIRPLANE diaries Souqf, of Wildvraod, Aha., fights fioiiws to sovo pflot mi possongtc It waa after midnight whan Charles Soucy heard tha airplane crash. Racing a mile acroea the wheat fields, he found the ma- chine in flames â€" with the pilot and a woman passenger still trapped inside! Working coolly and quickly, Soucy managed to force open the plane door and drag tha pflot to, safety. Then, grabbing an axe, be TUS DOW AWARD is a csftKix-j prtaented for acta of outttandiTtg heroism and uududes a $100 Canada Savings Bond, TKs Dow Award Committee, a group af editort of leading Canadian daily nauapapert, adect* winners from rteommendationa made by a nationaify â-  newt organization. the framework nnrtw ma pinned. In spit* finally succeeded ta cut away pcut of winch the woman of the flames, he freeing her. Thanks to hb oool bravery, two Uves had been saved . . . and we pay sincere tribute to gallant Chaiies Soucy through Mm presentation of The Dow Award. DOW BREWERY t MONTREAL Honey and Hank ByS^ \