At Home in Nature

Though the names of Roosevelt, Mills, Muir, Thoreau are known in the United States as advocates for conservation of natural resources, the first time natural resources were conserved by a government was during the reign of the Emperor Ashoka I of what is today the Indian subcontinent.While the first efforts at conservation were religiously motivated and our modern conservation is motivated for economic and political reasons, the result was surprisingly the same.

Emperor Ashoka reigned in 269 BC, and converted to Buddhism 5 years later after conquering all of what is today known as India, Pakistan, some of Iran, Burma and Tibet.One of the first human rulers to write autobiographical information, and express not only his laws but the reason behind his laws in writing, we have an intense understanding of his mind.In one such account, he wrote “I conquered the Kalingas eight years after my coronation. One hundred and fifty thousand were deported, one hundred thousand were killed and many more died (from other causes). After the Kalingas had been conquered, I came to feel a strong inclination towards the Dhamma, a love for the Dhamma and for instruction in Dhamma. Now I feel deep remorse for having conquered the Kalingas.”

In penance, he freed his people, but they remained loyal to him because of his strong dedication to the Buddhist faith, his fair laws, and humanitarian principles.Under his reign, we also saw the first acceptance of religious freedom (other religions were tolerated and Buddhists were not given special privileges, he commanded “All religions should reside everywhere, for all of them desire self-control and purity of heart” and “Contact (between religions) is good. One should listen to and respect the doctrines professed by others. I desire that all should be well-learned in the good doctrines of other religions”), but monks sent to convert the Greeks, Chinese, Tibetans, Egyptians and Africans, and numerous Buddhist laws were proclaimed, ranging from protecting animals from cruelty and in some cases from hunting, to the protection of flora, fauna and the land itself.

The conservation of nature began first with a protection for particular species and kinds of animals from the Emperor’s own plate and hunting.Then, as Ashoka’s faith grew, he ceased hunting and limited the number of animals that others could hunt in a year through a system of licenses (much like we have today).Rare animals were especially protected, but so were new mothers and animals that were young (just like today).Integrating animal cruelty with preservation efforts, Ashoka commanded (among other laws) “cocks are not to be caponized, husks hiding living beings are not to be burnt and forests are not to be burnt either without reason or to kill creatures. One animal is not to be fed to another.”

Like today, large and small animals were protected.Even queen ants were protected by Ashoka.Also, like today, animals (and people) were guaranteed rights to health care and shelter.Free roadside rest stops were provided much as trailheads and trail services are provided in some of our parks, with food, water and shelter for people and animals.He wrote, “I made provision for two types of medical treatment: medical treatment for humans and medical treatment for animals. Wherever medical herbs suitable for humans or animals are not available, I have had them imported and grown. Wherever medical roots or fruits are not available I have had them imported and grown. Along roads I have had wells dug and trees planted for the benefit of humans and animals.”

The result of a conservation system being the same whether religiously or secularly motivated is not astonishing when it is understood that, as Thoreau wrote, “In wildness is the preservation of man.”

Look to the skies just before sunrise and you’ll see something interesting: the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter appear to be in a line!Though not actually in alignment, our perspective from Earth makes them appear so, but it is a good time to consider that in ancient times, people would look to the stars for an understanding of what to do in their agriculture.It came naturally, as farmers used the light of the moon to get a few more hours of work done at night.

Though more recently, religious groups have claimed that stars and planets exert influences on our crops here on earth through their “energies,” in ancient times, the farmers would watch the stars to get a better idea of what time of year it actually was.You see, the modern calendar and all its conveniences was not available then, and sometimes June would be in the middle of the winter, and November would be in the warmest part of the year.It took the ancients a long time to perfect a solar calendar that actually worked.Until they did, they relied on the stars to know the season.

The Dog Star, Sirius, was a good indicator that summertime was at its peak.With the rising of Sirius, farmers would prepare to harvest potatoes and other heat sensitive crops, cease tilling, bring water to their fields, and otherwise bunker down for extreme heat.By counting the moons, they knew when it was likely to be safe from frost to plant.Each star and planet had its season.

The farmer LJ Columella was the first to describe an agrarian calendar based on stars and planets.His work, On Agriculture, is still used by many farmers today even though we now have a reliable solar calendar to tell us the months and seasons.

As superstition was gained after the age of reason, people began to become confused: did the stars cause the seasons, or did they simply mark the changes of the seasons?The mythology associated with the stars and planets began to influence people, and new religions based on the ancient worship of the numerous deities that the ancients worshiped arose.Permaculture is one such modern system that advocates utilizing planetary energies to improve harvests, but even Columella, who worshiped Mars thousands of years before Permaculture was ever considered, would tell you that the stars don’t tell you what to do: your knowledge that the stars are regular in their rising and setting against the passage of the seasons lets you anticipate seasonal trends in weather.

Today, farmers still work late by the light of the moon and still enjoy star watching, but now farmers enjoy starwatching for the joy of it, because they can look at a calendar to know what needs done at any given time.But one of the greatest parts of that joy is remembering the days before the solar calendar and using the stars and moons to help in your farming.

We use the words daily without thinking of them.But we have to remember that units of measurement have becoming increasingly standardized and based on units of ten.Long before meter / foot debate began, long before we were using dollars made of 100 cents, long before we were using only hours, minutes and seconds to define our day, units of time were also of various unstandardized lengths.Most of these are leftovers from lunar or stellar calendars when years were divided by 360 days and each week was 6 days (look in the Bible for references to when the 7^th day was invented during a transition from the Paleolithic stellar to the lunar calendar, long before the solar calendar was invented).They just don’t mean much of anything any more.For example, a moment is a medieval unit of time equal to 1.5 minutes or 1/40 of an hour.This seems arbitrary, except that it was 1/4 of a minute, which before mechanical clocks, used to be measured at 1/10 of an hour.A jiffy (while redefined as 1/60 of a second in modern times) used to mean as fast as lightning flashed.So, next time someone asks you to wait a moment, start your watch and count down!

Big news in the bird world this week: ducklings are now being seen in parks across the front range! How do ducks stay dry in water? Ducks and other waterfowl have an oil gland at the top of their tails, from which they spread oil around all their feathers.Ducklings, however, are not born with a functional oil gland.The mother duck will spread her own oil on her ducklings so that they can safely swim right away without getting waterlogged.

If you are raising ducklings without a mother duck, they will not have their own oils at first and will be unable to swim safely.Even a shallow dish of water can be fatal to a baby duck.Whenever they get wet and have no oils, they will get cold and maybe even die if they are not kept warm enough and helped to dry off.

But when is it safe to give your ducklings water to play in?They love to play in water even when they are too young for it, and it is tempting to give them some even right away.There is no standard age that has been agreed upon for when it is safe.Some people say at 4 weeks old they have a functional oil gland.Some people say wait until 8-12 weeks old, because their oil gland does not function well until they have their adult feathers mostly or fully grown in.One duck farmer even says to give them supervised water play time every day from the time they are 3 days old, and then put them under a heat lamp and help them dry off until they can do it themselves: this farmer claims that the regular early exposure to water encourages early and healthy oil gland development.

In my own professional opinion, it is first of all very difficult to keep the ducklings from playing in their drinking water – even if you get or make a special water container to keep them out.They will get wet.It is safest to monitor their drinking time for the first few days to a week, and give them water at regular intervals through the day, taking it away after they’ve all had a good drink.That way, they don’t get all wet and cold while you’re not watching, and they have a chance to dry off in between drinking times.

Second, you will know just by watching your ducklings when they start to repel water from their feathers.Before they can stay dry, they will look and feel very wet whenever they’ve been playing in the water.After a certain age they will not look soggy.For my ducklings, this was at around 3 or 4 weeks of age.At this point, I let them have drinking water without supervision.However, to be safe, I would not let them swim until they began to get their adult feathers significantly growing in, at around 8 weeks.

In their examination of communication within lobster populations (Chemical Communication in Crustaceans 2011, Part 3, 239-256), Doctors Juan Aggio and Charles D. Derby found that chemical communication through both urine and blood emissions plays a large role in lobster social behavior.“Lobsters are fascinating animals that use chemicals as messages regarding their sexual status, their standing in a social hierarchy, and whether they affiliate with or avoid conspecifics. This, plus their economic importance, makes them important models for the study of intraspecific chemical communication. Our chapter is an overview of these processes, including the types of interactions between lobsters influenced by chemicals, how those interactions are affected by chemicals, and how these chemicals are detected. Since “lobster” refers to a common body plan rather than a taxonomic group and thus includes animals of differing phylogenetic relatedness and lifestyles – most notably clawed lobsters, spiny lobsters, and slipper lobsters, their use of chemicals in intraspecific interactions is diverse. Whenever possible, we compare the different groups of lobsters, though the amount of data available for relevant behaviors varies with the lifestyle of lobsters. Clawed lobsters use urinary chemicals processed by the olfactory pathway to identify previous opponents and maintain a stable social order, which is important because only the most dominant males will mate. After a hierarchy has been established by fighting, subsequent rematches are shorter and less violent, with urinary chemicals playing a key role in this process. Mate choice and mating behavior are also mediated by urinary olfactory cues. These behaviors are disrupted when one of the animals either has a compromised olfactory sense or is not allowed to release urine. Although there is less available data, the picture seems similar in spiny lobsters, with females using urinary chemicals from males as one of the cues in mate selection. Both spiny and slipper lobsters form dominance hierarchies, but little is known about how they are influenced by chemical signals. Conversely, spiny lobsters have been extensively studied regarding the mechanisms of aggregation and avoidance. Aggregation is mediated by urine-borne chemicals and avoidance is mediated by blood-borne chemicals, both processed by the olfactory system. Molecular identification of these compounds will be critical in allowing researchers to study the neural processing of intraspecific chemicals.”

Among the numerous ways that animals communicate, chemical communication is the most species – specific.Unlike touch, sight and sound, taste and smell can send a signal that is directed specifically at members of the same species.Because these signals are very easily intercepted by predators and other enemies, the chemicals are usually disguised and the actual communicator chemical present among all the chemical camouflage can be very difficult to detect.Insights into lobster communication will lead to better understandings of our own reactions to smell and taste, both physiologically and emotionally.

Michael Glenn Hickey of the University of Texas studied various devices for increasing potato production in West Texas (THE EFFECT OF SOIL TYPE ON STOLON NUMBER,TUBER INITIATION, AND TUBER VOLUME IN IRISH POTATOES, 1977).“Potatoes in West Texas are grown for an early retail market which requires harvesting prior to maturity. Early tuber set would allow more time prior to harvest for tuber bulking. An extended period of tuber bulking would result in higher numbers of marketable tubers, thus an increase in yield. A knowledge of some of the factors influencing tuber initiation would aid in the understanding of early tuber set.”

Early emergence, of course, helps.“The percentage of plants emerging is shown to decrease with decreasing clay content in the soil. Plants in all three soils failed to show any marked differences in early emergence, up to 17 days after planting. From 17 to 31 days after planting the differences in plant emergence were more significant and the distinct textural difference appeared.”

But the friability of the soil is only part of the reason for early emergence: potatoes are strong enough to push their way through even hard clay.“The textural differences can be attributed to the differing moisture relations in the three soil types. Increasing the clay content results in an increased moisture retention. Moisture that was held in the proximity of the seed piece would aid in increasing the percentage of emergence. The water retention capacity of the Patricia soil was extremely low. Water moved through the soil and little was retained around the seed piece. Thus a drying out effect between waterings existed in the Patricia fine sand that was not as evident in the Amarillo and Pullman soils. The drying out of the soil between waterings would affect any weak seed pieces. This would result in poor emergence of plants, especially during the later period of plant emergence.”

Raising temperatures in greenhouses are not necessarily a good idea, once summer temperatures have arrived: high temperatures can reduce iron uptake and also greenhouse effects can alter the moisture content in the soil: “Plants growing outside of the greenhouse exhibited a higher percent emergence than those inside the greenhouse. Better water relations outside the greenhouse could possibly account for the difference. Lower relative humidities outside of the greenhouse would permit a more uniform drying of the soil, this would compensate for the rapid water movement in the sandy soils and permit a more even moisture distribution for the three soils. High soil temperature, above 21 C, has been shown to inhibit plant growth of potatoes (Somnerfeldt and Knutson, 1968).”

All this goes to show the reasons why higher tuber production is achieved through mounds, and the grow towers that are typically used for the cultivation of potatoes: under such conditions, moisture is easily maintained neither high or low, and temperature is also regulated.Other species that rely on similar constancy for their crops rely on mounds (such as ants farming fungi), and human farmers would do well to emulate them.

In their Consequences of climate change on the tree of life in Europe (24 February 2011, VOL 470 NATURE pg 531), the Doctors Wilfried Thuiller, Sebastien Lavergne, Cristina Roquet, Isabelle Boulangeat, Bruno Lafourcade & Miguel. B. Araujo report that climate change will effect some species of trees more than others, resulting in dramatic changes to the ecology as ecosystems become redefined by different trees. “Reductions in phylogenetic diversity will be greater in southern Europe, and gains are expected in regions of high latitude or altitude. However, losses will not be offset by gains and the tree of life faces a trend towards homogenization across the continent.” The Doctors say that “Climatic tolerances vary across species, causing some species to be more vulnerable to climate change than others. Because climate tolerances are not randomly distributed across phylogenies, species sensitivities to climate change are expected to be clustered along the phylogeny. It follows that if vulnerable species are closely related, shared internal branches of the tree of life have higher risks of collapsing.” Their estimates for changes in phylogenetic diversity versus scenarios of random extinction for plants, birds and mammals (graphs, above) demonstrate 2 scenarios: a, Emission scenario A1F1; b, emission scenario B1. The grey area is the quantile range of projected phylogenetic diversity due to range contraction (from 2020 onward), randomly scattered across the sample of trees.

Nourishment is important to many kinds of farm production, but also for wool production.Texas A&M University has known through the efforts of James Addison Carey III (Effects of Range Management Practices on Wool Production, 1984) that even rotation of grazing pastures can result in a significant difference in fleece weights (3.35kg vs 3.04 kg) because undernourishment results in a temporary reduction in the number of active follicles which are associated with fiber shedding.

Mr. Carey explains, “if the wool data for lactating ewes and non lactating ewes had been analyzed together, no significant differences would have been found between any of the grazing management treatments. When the physiological state of the ewes was considered, a reduction (P<.05) of 10% ingrease fleece weight was noted in the lactating ewes (3.14 kg) compared to non lactating ewes (3.52 kg). This agrees with the 10 to 14% reduction in annual grease fleece due to full cycle reproduction found by other studies (Doney, 1958; Brown et al., 1966; Seebeck and Tribe, 1963; Slen and Whiting, 1956). Brown et al. (1966) concluded that about one-third of the reduction in wool growth by Merinos during pregnancy and lactation stems from a decrease in fiber numbers and two-thirds from a decrease in fiber volume.Observations on the number of fibers per unit area of skin by Brown et al. (1966) indicated there may be a greater decrease during pregnancy than during lactation, although this change was evident in both phases of reproduction in the study by Slen and Whiting (1956). These results indicate that ewes producing lambs are more sensitive to grazing treatments than non producing ewes. Therefore, when wool production is used for an endpoint and treatment differences are expected to be small, only ewes that wean lambs should be used as experimental units in grazing studies to detect these small differences.”

The reason, of course, is that ewes which are also producing milk or lambs have more need for food.

Mr. Carey also explains that if you are maximizing fleece production, you should stock many sheep per hectare, but if you are trying to maximize lamb production, you should ensure each ewe has as much food as possible.The reason is that fleece production responds less than lamb production to shortages of food.“Stocking rates had no significant effect on grease fleece weights per ewe, and grease fleece weights per hectare increased with increased stocking rates. Fiber diameter decreased significantly (P<.05) as the stocking rate increased. These findings would suggest that a six ewe per hectare stocking rate would be optimal; however, lamb production data on these same ewes indicate that a stocking rate of six ewes per hectare severely depressed lamb production.There was no difference (P>.17) in grease fleece weights between the two ewe, four ewe and six ewe stocking rates; however, there was a significant (P<.05) linear effect in fiber diameter (25.5, 24.5 and 24.1 microns, respectively), as stocking rate increased.These results tend to agree with the findings of McManus et al., (1964) and George and Pearse (1978) that stocking rates had little influence on wool quality and that increased production per hectare would more than offset the decreased production per ewe. Wool production per hectare was higher as stocking rates increased; however, at the higher six ewe per hectare stocking rate, lamb production was severely depressed in the second year of the study. The percent of ewes weaning lambs in the six ewe per hectare treatment dropped from 90% in the first year to 29% in the second year, compared to 90% for the two ewe and four ewe per hectare stocking rates in the second year (Bryant et al., 1984).”

That said, an improvement of 10% in wool production is not only significant, but worthwhile.Especially when lambs are brought into the equation: lambs are worth much more than fleeces.Supplementing feed on small pastures makes sense.

Money presumes a future payment of a commodity.In antiquity, money meant cattle and grain. A “drachma” was a weight of grain. Japan's feudal system was based on rice per year – koku. Today, this system is still in effect for most farmers, who borrow against a future crop to gain money today for seed and operational expenses.Well, the demand for metals or precious stones to fund this credit system allowed mines to become profitable, and as people dug deep into the earth looking for shiny things that farmers could exchange for seed money.The mines were too complex to be owned and operated by a single person, and quickly came under the management of the government.The government found it important to support farmers with seed money, developing the process of modern agricultural subsidy.

The farmers who borrowed from their future crop to gain seed money today and the investors who lent money for a future crop eventually learned how to form a corporation, a business entity in which investors own the farms and hire the farmers, and the profits are divided into equal shares based on investment and labor.With labor becoming valued as highly as investment, the labor union was invented, allowing workers equal bargaining power to the investors.With the organizational power of a corporation, suddenly private ownership of mines was possible and gradually governments got out of the mining business… and got into the banking business.

The banknote was first developed in China in the Tang during the 7th century, with local issues of paper currency. Its roots were in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), as merchants and wholesalers desired to avoid the heavy bulk of copper coinage in large commercial transactions.Before the use of paper, the Chinese used coins that were circular, with a rectangular hole in the middle. Several coins could be strung together on a rope. Merchants in China, if they became rich enough, found that their strings of coins were too heavy to carry around easily. To solve this problem, coins were often left with a trustworthy person, and the merchant was given a slip of paper recording how much money he had with that person. If he showed the paper to that person he could regain his money. The King was the most trustworthy person around, and soon banks were governmentally licensed.

But corporations began to offer their own notes, representing shares of future revenues (called “stock”) and debt notes (called “bonds”).Non-farm and non-mine businesses gained the ability to earn investment money through bonds and stock.Stocks and bonds have intrinsic value, just like the shiny objects that they can be traded for.Marketplaces evolved where stocks and bonds were traded, just like farm products or construction materials.Bought and sold, these markets facilitated the exchange of shiny objects to those who needed them most, who could pay them back best.

Times were good.People began to bank, or save, excess money, and the banks in which they deposited the money found they could loan out banked money at interest and still be able to get enough money to those depositors when it was called for.This doubled the money supply: the same dollar could be loaned and banked.With a doubled money supply, economies grew and farmers found they could sell their production for a higher value: people had more money!This encouraged more farming, which led to more babies being born, which allowed more people to undertake industry and bank more money.

But this is the rule for free economies when banks are owned or regulated by the government to be non-profit.Our own economy is somewhat different.There is not free competition between banks to keep interest rates low, and banks here have a tendency to increase interest to the highest amount the market will bear, shrinking money supply, decreasing agricultural prices.

I admit that it took me longer than it should have to written this opinion statement.In due diligence, I tried to understand why anyone would be for nuclear weapons.It seems that some people believe nuclear weapons are a deterrent to wars of aggression.However, a quick examination of history shows that, since the invention of the nuclear weapon, nations with nuclear weapons still have been involved in wars of defense.Including our own.Also, wars do sometimes happen accidently or without cause.In the course of my research I learned all kinds of disturbing things not fit for a family newspaper.I learned about bombs designed to maximize deadly fallout so that all life will be killed on this planet.I learned about weapons so powerful that they would destroy their user in a suicide attack.I learned about deadlier weapons still, chemical bombs, biological warfare, and even some nasty robots that might have less hesitation about killing civilians than the Nazi SS officers they were apparently designed to imitate.So, I will sum up my argument with pictures from http://www.carloslabs.com/projects/200712B/GroundZero.html, as I am simply left speechless.

For many people in America, Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer fun, the end of the school year, a time for barbeques and vacations.Yet it bears reminding that Memorial Day is a day for us to all stop and remember those brave Americans who have served in the military.

By far the most famous of art commemorating our armed forces is “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” by Joe Rosenthal.Taken February 23, 1945, this photograph shows five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising of the American flag from the highest point of the Japanese island of Iwo Jima after the desirable position was captured by American troops during World War II.

Of the six men depicted in the picture, three (Franklin Sousley, Harlon Block, and Michael Strank) were killed during the battle; the three survivors (John Bradley, Rene Gagnon, and Ira Hayes) became celebrities upon their identification in the photo.

Rosenthal, with two other photographers, reached the summit as the Marines were attaching the flag to an old Japanese water pipe. Rosenthal put down his Speed Graphic camera (which was set to 1/400th of a second shutter speed, with the f-stop between 8 and 16) on the ground so he could pile rocks to stand on for a better vantage point. In doing so, he nearly missed the shot. The soldiers began raising the U. S. flag. Realizing he was about to miss it, Rosenthal quickly swung his camera up and snapped the photograph without using the viewfinder.Ten years after the flag-raising, Rosenthal wrote:

Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when you take a picture like that, you don't come away saying you got a great shot. You don't know.

It became the only photograph to win a Pulitzer Prize in the same year as its publication.

While our customers are pain free and happy with their poplar, aspen and willow, we gave a thought to those that weren't.

A new study from the University of Leeds in England followed hundreds of rheumatoid arthritis patients over several years of treatment to determine whether their treatment was improved by having nurse-led care.The results were “inconclusive,” meaning that the results of nurse-led care were statistically the same as the results of regular care: nurse-led care did not make any difference in improving the health of the patients.At least the nurses didn’t hurt.

Data sources

Electronic databases (AMED, CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE, HMIC, HTA, MEDLINE, NHEED, Ovid Nursing and PsycINFO) were searched from 1988 to January 2010 with no language restrictions. Inclusion criteria were: randomised controlled trials, nurse-led care being part of the intervention and including patients with RA.

Review methods

Data were extracted by one reviewer and checked by a second reviewer. Quality assessment was conducted independently by two reviewers using the Cochrane Collaboration's Risk of Bias Tool. For each outcome measure, the effect size was assessed using risk ratio or ratio of means (RoM) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) as appropriate. Where possible, data from similar outcomes were pooled in a meta-analysis.

Results

Seven records representing 4 RCTs with an overall low risk of bias (good quality) were included in the review. They included 431 patients and the interventions (nurse-led care vs usual care) lasted for 1–2years. Most effect sizes of disease activity measures were inconclusive (DAS28 RoM=0.96, 95%CI [0.90–1.02], P=0.16; plasma viscosity RoM=1 95%CI [0.8–1.26], p=0.99) except the Ritchie Articular Index (RoM=0.89, 95%CI [0.84–0.95], P<0.001) which favoured nurse-led care. Results from some secondary outcomes (functional status, stiffness and coping with arthritis) were also inconclusive. Other outcomes (satisfaction and pain) displayed mixed results when assessed using different tools making them also inconclusive. Significant effects of nurse-led care were seen in quality of life (RAQoL RoM=0.83, 95%CI [0.75–0.92], P<0.001), patient knowledge (PKQ RoM=4.39, 95%CI [3.35–5.72], P<0.001) and fatigue (median difference=?330, P=0.02).

Conclusions

The estimates of the primary outcome and most secondary outcomes showed no significant difference between nurse-led care and the usual care. While few outcomes favoured nurse-led care, there is insufficient evidence to conclude whether this is the case. More good quality RCTs of nurse-led care effectiveness in rheumatoid arthritis are required.

Sometimes a glance back at the origins of a science are as enlightening as the most recent research.So little has changed fundamentally since its beginning, while so much detail and understanding has been gained!Nutritional science, pioneered by the likes of Dr. John Kellogg, MD and others, had as an original an innovative goal the improvement of the quality and duration of human life through a treatment of food as a medicine.This brought western dietetics in line with eastern medicine, and set the foundation for today’s astounding advances.

However, the complex science of dietetics was difficult to bring to the people.Thinking of food as something more than what filled the stomach or an enjoyable luxury required a leap of understanding that the average American was unprepared for.

The first dieticians had to explain things in very practical terms, not only producing new cookbooks, but also explaining the importance of eating well.Jessie P Rich of the University of Texas was one of these pioneers and, on November 22, 1913, ten years before Dr. John Kellogg would write his own attempts to bring the science of nutrition to the public, wrote Simple Cooking of Wholesome Food for the Far Home.Rich begins the work by explanation of nutrition’s importance to children, “No subject on the farm at the present time is receiving so much attention as .the proper feeding of the farm animals.The cows are given a measured amount of meal, and succulent material, and the pigs a carefully estimated ration intended to develop a pig best suited to its intended use. How is it with the boys and girls on the farm? Is their food as carefully studied and administered as that of the farm animal?Is it prepared in a way to give the greatest amount of nourishment for the least expenditure of bodily energy? No farm asset is as valuable as its boys and girls, and yet they are more neglected, when it comes to the question of proper food and cooking, than the less important asset—the stock.”

And with this excellent introduction, Rich explains the way food is used in the body, introducing basic food chemistry of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals.Rich is then able to explain the importance of food safety, and provide excellent arguments for vegetarianism: cooking food makes it lose nutrition, and the foods that are safe to eat uncooked are not meat.Rich advocates the integration of beans and eggs, cooked at a low heat, into the diet as the best sources of protein.

While filled with many quality and vintage traditional Texan favorites, the potato soup seemed like the best to me.

Potato Soup

Three medium sized potatoes, one quart milk, two slices onion, three tablespoons butter, one and one-half teaspoons salt, two tablespoons flour.

Cook potatoes in boiling salted water; when soft, rub through a strainer. Scald milk with onion in it, remove onion, and add milk slowly to potatoes. Melt the butter, add dry ingredients, stir until well mixed, then stir into boiling soup; cook one minute. Season and serve.

In China, watermelons are exploding.The story, picked up by tgdaily.com (http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/56006-chinese-farmers-plagued-by-exploding-watermelons) by Lydia Leavitt in her May 21^st publication, Chinese farmers plagued by exploding watermelons.

“China Central Television (CCT) blames the phenomenon on the overuse of a chemical designed to make fruit grow faster, claiming famers were overspraying crops to get ahead of competitors Then again, agricultural experts are seemingly unable to explain why chemical-free melons were also exploding, as they point to weather and abnormal size as the main cause. According to Xinhua news agency, 20 famers in a village in Jiangsu province imported watermelon seeds from Japan - 10 of whom eventually watched their crop explode. Interestingly enough, only one out of the ten had treated his \\exploding watermelons with the growth chemical,” reports Leavitt.

While agricultural scientists are not exactly sure why the watermelons are exploding, they are energetically researching the bizarre tragedy.

Bizarre melons are not new to the region.In Japan, watermelons are grown to be cubes by molding the young fruits.The cubic melons have a higher sale price because of their novelty, but also because they are more space efficient in the refrigerator, and ship with less damage.

The explosive Chinese melons are a stern reminder of the dangers of too rapid experimentation.Conservative, Japanese style adventures in plant modification are best.

When camping out in the wilderness, it is easy to bring too much.In considering what to leave behind, give a thought to forgetting the tent.By bringing a stout sleeping bag (Coleman offers some very nice affordable bags) and a large tarp, you are sure to stay dry and warm.

The tarp should be big enough to wrap under the sleeping bag to act as a moisture barrier with the ground, and also on top to prevent rain and dew from wetting you from above.It should be long enough to tuck under your feet and keep the wind out, and tuck over your head if you wanted to shield yourself from the wind and weather (be careful to leave a ventilation hole: don’t tuck yourself in too tight).

Veteran campers will acknowledge that on a clear night, bagging is better than tenting, and only under severe conditions will a tent be preferred to the convenience and pleasure of the raw natural experience of bagging.