The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-04-16

SENDS LETTER TO
SWISS CHILDREN
Richmond, Ind, April 1, 1921

Richmond, Ind. April I. 1921.
Dear Boys and Girls: The chill
dren Of this fifth grade are very
much interested In Switzerland so
that we are delighted to write to
you.
The Mississippi valley Is the val
ley in which We live. 1t Is very big
compared with the whole country
of Switzerland. It Is about 1900
miles from east to west and about
the same from north to south. The
surface around here Is about LOCO
feet above the sea level. We can't
see the mountains because we are
hundreds Of miles away. The high.
est peak of the Rockies in the
United States Is Mt. Whitney. in
California. 1t Is 14.500 feet high.
Indiana's surface compared with
Switzerland 10 very level. We are
much interested in glaciers be-
cause we have none. But many
thousands Of years ago we had one
and II was over q mile in depth.
It covered Canada and q part OF
the United States. and came down
as far as the Ohio river. Then the
climate grew warmer and 1t melt.
ed 1t made very rich soil, wich is
good for agriculture. It made the
Great Lakes and gave US very good
water power. We should like to
know the width and length Of your
glaciers.
Agriculture IL very important in
the Mississippi valley. Where VIC
live the ground Is very billy. In
diana WAS once the bed Of an old
lake so the sell Is very fertile. Two
of the leading products are corn
and wheat. The climate ia suited
to these crops for the summers are
long and hot and good for ripening
them. We have more corn and
wheat than we need 80 we ship
some to other countries. You may
have eaten some The animals VIC
have On the farms are chickens,
pigs, cows and horses. We have
many large poultry farms. Do you
have many farms? We have great
numbers of them. Our farms are
big and we use much farm machin.
cry.
All of our milk comes from the
cows. We do not use goats milk.
Here some Of the people use cleo
trie milking machines. There are
also separators that separate the
milk from the cream. Most of the
butter is made In creameries. It
is churned in large churns that
hold over enc barrel of cream.
Then it is nodded into one pound
cakes of butter. In one Of the
diaries there are.two hundred and
fifty head of cattle. have told
you little about our dairies. And
we would like to know more about
your diaries.
We are wondering whether your
customs are like ours. We are
going to write about our customs.
First, We will tell you about our
churches. In our city we have
many different kinds of churches.
There are about twelve Protestant
churches and two Catholic
churches. In America the children
dress like the English children.
All of our clothing is not made
alike. In the summer we wear
light clothing and in the winter
we wear heavy clothing. The next
thing We will tell you is about our
pets. We have many different
kind Of pets in our country, some
of which are rabbits, cats, doss.
birds and guinea pigs. Our games
are hop scotch, base ball, basket
ball, hide and seek and tag.
Our studies are geography, arith.
metic, spelling, English, music and
reading. Richmond has very
nice art gallery for SO small city.
1t has several artists and We go to
see the exhibits Of paintings about |
six times a year. We have five and
a half hours of school a day Vale |
school has two and a half months
every year. The fourth,
fifth and sixth grades are going to i
have a cantata. 1t Is called the
awakening of Spring Vale !
school has an orchestra with elev-
en- children in it. The Instruments