Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1936-08-07
FRANK PARKER
STOCBRDeE

The other day we got into the
car and motored out to Quaker
town, Pa, where my friend Charley
Meredith runs one of the best
country weekly newspapers l know
of the Quakertown Free Press.
1 was struck by the apparent
prosperity of that section. l talked
with several business men and a
number of farmers in Bucks coun-
ty. Its good farming country and
there is no distress that l could
learn of among the farmers there.
Very few people are On relief.
About the only sign of relief act
ivities are the trainloads Of city
unemployed sent out to work On
some projects in the southern part
of the country.
Self reliance is a traditional char
acteristic of these strudy Quaker
and pennsylvania Dutch people.
HOUSES .. 2-ft. walls
We had luncheon in an old stone
farm house built more than 200
years ago and still occupied by
descendants of the original builder.
We. saw hundreds Of similar stone
houses, with two-foot walls and
slate roofs, built to withstand the
elements. There is plenty Of stone
all round hat region, both red
sandstone and limestone, and the
early settlers did what the first SET
tiers in every new country always
do-built their homes of the native
materials close at hand.
We hear a great deal about pre-
fabricated" homes, built of steel OF
plastic slabs made in factories, and
l have no doubt that we shall see
great developments in that line.
But I think they will be mostly
erected in city suburbs. They are
not likely to replace local materials,
where those are available, assem-
bled by local labor in country dis
tricts there almost every man can
turn his hand to carpentry or mas
onry. Il
crossing
We crossed the Delaware River
az sIhassey spot where George
W ashingron crossed it in a rowboae
on his historic retreat from Tren-'
ton. The bridge at Washington's
Crossing connects two state parks,
one maintained by Pennsylvania
and the other by New jersey
Paralleling the Delaware River
On both sides are canals, dug by
early colonists to provide safe navi-
CATION no matter what the stage Of
the water was in the river. Both
canals have been long since aban-
doned except as millraces for oc-
casional sawmills and gristmills
along the river bank. But the State
of Pennsylvania is making a park
a hundred miles long out of the
banks and bed Of the old Delaware
Canal, to provide picnic and recrea-
ton grounds and smooth, safe wa
tiers for canoeing.
Even an abandoned canal has its
CADETS some wanted
l saw a new gadset the Other
day which its maAers tell me i
selling faster than they Ian turn ii
out. 1t is a garbage grinder that
you put in the kitchen sink. II
grinds the table and kitchen waste
to a fine powder which is ther
washed down the drain, saving al
the labor and smells Of garbage
cans and their emptying.
1t struck me that its inventor
was a genius. 1t takes a genius Il
forsee that people are going to wan
something which hasn't yet beer
made.
Forty years ago there was NJ
public demand for automobiles o.
radios. Nobody had ever seen then
so nobody knew that they wanted
them. Half of the things that wo
men buy in the stores are thing
they did not know they wanted I'm
til they saw them in the show
windows.
Too many inventors, on the 9th
er hand, make the mistake of try
ing to produce something whicl
they think people ought to have
without knowing enough abou
human nature to realize that tn
things we ought to have are no
always the things we want.
Il y y
SPORT the rules