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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (April 5, 1955)
Laplanders Interested In Recreation, Despite Snow, Cold Weather (Editor's note: Thii it the i here Norwegians, Finns and Gyp- last in a series of articles written for the Mail Tribune by Walter Mallila, Portland newspaperman, while on tour of the Scandinavian countries.) By WALTER MATTILA Mail Tribune Special Writer Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland (By Air Mail) There is a sur prising interest in recreation here above the Arctic circle, de spite heavy snow, low temper atures and ice-covered roads. Some 100 miles northeast from In Hie Day's News By FRANK JENKINS I'd like to talk today about an oldiew town down in southern Arizona Casa Grande. It is old In the sense that it has been sit ting out there in the hot desert sunshine for goodness knows how long. It is new in that it has been hit by a new indus try the growing of cotton in the Southwest. Casa Grande is in Pinal coun ty. Pinal is one of America's two largest cotton-growing coun ties. The other is Kern county, in California. I wonder what our Southern ancestors would have thought and perhaps said if someone had told them a cen tury and a quarter ago that the center of the cotton industry would some day move into what was then an unknown region. I imagine they would have ootfed at the suggestion. fASA GRANDE is a flourish ing little city of some 5,000 permanent residents. At the height of the cotton-picking sea son, which in the past has ended along in the latter part of Feb ruary, the population has been bout 15,000. The extra 10,000 has been made up largely of workers in the cotton fields and the gins and the seed - crushing plants. During this period, Casa Grande has been a beehive of industry, with everybody in the town working at top speed to keep up with business. 1HOPE you'll note that I've spoken here in the past tense. Something new has been added to the cotton industry of Pinal county. The new ingredient is the MECHANICAL COTTON PICKER. The machines moved in in a big way for the first lime last fall. As a result, the cotton crop was pretty well stowed away by the first of January. The cotton-picking crew has been nowhere near as large this winter as in the past. The tradespeople have noticed the difference in their business. UKR m long as I can remem ber, the mechanical cotton nicker has been talked about. The prospect of it has given the towns in the cotton states the shivers for many decades. Well, it's here. We'll see what we'll see. "PERSONALLY, I doubt if cot ton picking machines will wreck the economy of the cot ton belt. I don't know, of course. But ever since the beginning of the mechanical revolution in Britain the power loom was the first startling innovation short-sighted persons have been saying that the machine will ruin everybody by TAKING AWAY JOBS. It hasn't. There are fantasti eally more jobs now than before the advent of the machine. The end result of the machine has been to cheapen production and thus make it possible for every body to have MORE THINGS. I think it will work out that way in Pinal county. I'D LIKE to mention another thing here. The short-staple cotton industry in Pinal -county has been made possible by WA TER. Presently, the water is pumped up from the under ground water reservoirs. There is PRESENTLY enough of it. But it looks very much like water is being taken out of the ground faster than nature is re newing the supply by the process of rainfall. What will happen if the underground reservoirs be gin to SHRINK? One thing that will happen is that southern Arizona will go HARDER after a larger share of the waters of the Colorado river sies have just completed a full day of horse racing on an oval track made by a logging camp bulldozer on the ice of the Kemi river, which drains most of Fin nish Lapland. Several thousand people wit nessed the races and repeatedly skied from the track to the bookies who held forth in a shack. Women Drivers Late in the day women driv ers handled the steaming racers with remarkable skill. Excellent driving also featured a handi cap race in which 30 sulkies were entered. Just after they made peace with the Russians, the Finns held two days of horse racing on Kemi ice at this site at Pelkosn- jemi. Appearance of more cars in Lapland has aroused interest in car racing at the expense of reindeer, horse and motorcycle competition on ice. Everyone here from two years of age is on skiis. Skiing spec tacles include cross country and jump events at Rovaniemi, the provincial capital, and the log ging center of Kemijarvi. Among entries at these events this spring have been Olympic cham pions. Three Jumps Rovaneimi has three jumps, one for children. Among its jumpers is Aauno Luiro, who at the age of 18 in 1952 establish ed at Biersdorf, Germany, the present world's record for dis tance 462 feet. He is now at a sanitarium for consumption and also suffers from diabetes. His 1.6-year-old brother ranked fifth among Norwegian, Swed ish and Finnish entries at the latest Rovaniemi contests. In the spring Lapland snow is the skier's delight. It is firm but not crusty and makes for fast skiing until the. thaw every afternoon. ' Special trains and buses bring skiers from south ern Finland and northern Swe den to ski events at Rovaniemi. School children have cross country contests and groups of skiers go on long distance jaunts to remote parts of Lapland, liv ing with the native Lapps. One Helsinki expedition builds ig loos of ice for shelter and has come down rivers on floating ice when surprised by an early thaw. Largs Hotels Large and attractive hotels have been built at Rovaniemi and Kemijarvi for the needs of expanding industry and tourist trade. These have the class of a Lapp costume. Uniformed door men are on duty at both hotels in all weathers and the cuisine and wine cellar measures up handsomely to continental stan dards Lapland is showing its grow ing prosperity by having a good time in its grand spring sun over an empire of white and snow-hooded forests 7,000 Candy Eggs Easter Hunt Plan A total of 7,000 candy eggs, each in a cellophane sack, will be distributed in the annual meaiora luwanu aster egg hunt. The hunt will be conducted at 9 a.m., Saturday, April 9, at Hawthorne park. Residents of the Medford vicinity are invited to bring their youngsters, who will hunt in three age groups, 1 to 3," 4 to 6 and 7 to 9 years. Three prizes for boys and three for girls in each age group, 18 prizes in all, are planned for finding lucky eggs. There will be one grand prize. Committeemen serving with Chairman L. C. McLaughin are Dr. Bill Bracker, Vern Thorpe, Dell Wright, Cliff Lacy, Bob Church, Bill Singler, Bill Ruff- ner and Jennings Pierce. Pierce will be master-of-ceremonies. Kiwanians will package the eggs Friday night at the Bracker home in the Griffin Creek dis trict. I'LL CLOSE this piece by harp ing on an old string. AS OF NOW, southern Oregon and far northern California have enough water for all their needs. We have water enough for irriga tion, for power, for industry and for recreation. But if we LOSE any consider able portion of our water by ex portation, we WON'T have enough. Without ENOUGH WA TER, our future will be dark and uncertain. And Nothing is more certain than that, as the years pass, the pres sure for importation of water to meet the needs of the almost waterless Southwest will grow stronger and the prices that will be bid for imported water will go HIGHER AND HIGHER. SAVINGS Invested By April II Earn Dividends from APRIL I Current Rate 3 Per Annum Avmes fc LOAM AUOCtATIOM 126 E. Main Medford "Where You Are Paid To Save" EN ROUTE HOME Mrs. Adele Austin Rickett (right) is whisked to waiting auto by friend Arthur Link (center warding off reporters), a university of California profes sor, after she stepped from ship which brought her to San Francisco from Hongkong and Red China imprisonment. Japanese Atom Bomb Victims Due in States New York U.R) Twenty Japanese girls, so disfigured by the Hiroshima atom blast that they have lived as virtual re cluses, will arrive here within the month for plastic surgery and medical treatment which may return them to normal life, it was announced here today. The girls, now 19 and 24 years old, were trapped in a public school by the first atomic attack Aug. 6, 1945. They will be flown here to gether by the U.S. Air Force and will receive free care from two doctors and a hospital through the interest of Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review. Legislative Heads i Look To April 16 For Adjournment Salem (U.R) Senate Presi dent Elmo E. Smith (R-John Day) and House Speaker Ed ward A. Geary (R-Klamath Falls) have set April 16 as the target date for winding up the 1955 session of the Oregon Leg lislature. They said it was an elastic date and they wanted no major legislation to be cut off before full consideration of both chambers. Whether the target date for the sine die adjournment can be reached is dependent largely on the fate of the House-passed tax bills now being studied by the Senate Assessment and Tax ation Committee headed by Sen. Rudie Wilhelm (R- Portland.) Tax Meeting Set Sen. Wilhelm has called a meeting tonight at which time his committee will discuss the tax program prepared by the House Tax Committee headed by Rep. Loran Stewart (R-Cottage Grove). Tax committee members and others in the legislature are concerned over the probability that the three-cents a pack tax on cigarettes and the inciease in state personal income taxes, major points of the House tax program, will be referred to the voters if passed by the Senate. Because of this concern, a special election may be pro vided to give the voters a chance Tuesday, April 5, 1955 MEDFORD (OREGON) MAIL TRIBUlfR SEYllt to decide upon the issues. Just how many measures would be submitted at such a special elec tion has not been determined. Detroit (U.R) A Wayne coun ty road patrolman investigated a report that someone scattered roofing nails in front of a real estate office. He arrived on foot. He reported his patrol car had a blowout when a nail pierced a tire. Do you know you can talk to several cities at once by long distance? Here's how it works: Suppose you want to talk to four relatives in different cities. 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