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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 3, 1959)
Russia s Virgin Lands Beckon But Muscle, Patience Required (Editor's Note: This is the fourth of five reports on "Russia Revis ited" by a former Moscow corres pondent who recently made an ex tensive tour of the Soviet Union.) Br COLETTE BLACKMOORE United Press International Kaskelensky Virgin Land Farm, Kazakhstan, USSR -(CPD-The call of the far-off Vir gin Lands is a glamorous one, but it demands plenty of muscle, a strong stomach and a lifetime of patience. . From a cozy seat in Mos cow, it may seem like a thrill ing experience to go' build a new world out East. And no doubt it will seem even more so a hundred years from now when the story of how Siberia was opened up to Communism is a major chapter in every Russian child's history book '-like the conquering of the American Wild West. If there are no Indians or massacres in the Siberian pic ture, the Soviet story-tellers will probably have invented them by then. As for other obstacles, such as bad men and the, struggle against the elements, wind, thunder, and famine, there will be enough of those to lend excitement to the Eastern epic. '" : , ,. But right now, even .the most expert Hollywood script writers would have a ' hard time making the Virsin Lands of Kazakhstan appear the place to spend the rest of one's life. -Takes Guts To stick with it out here, hundreds of miles from a de cent movie house and a foot ball stadium, it takes more guts than possessed by some of those Russian youths who have answered the Communist Party's appeal to goEast. A good many young Soviets though, - and they were the majority, have had the stick-to-it-iveness required and they have settled - down to raise Virgin Land families as well as crops. It is those who stayed and those who are yet to come and stay that we write about here. ' ; The dirt road leading to Kaskelensky Farm is full of ruts and detours. The only in habitants are the prairie dogs who Sit on their haunches un fo) JJ) After captivating North westerners for over a century, wee ready to admit there is a secret about making a keen,' crisp brew time after time. It's Blitz quality, and the secret behind it, a care fully guarded family formula perfected til the sound of a car sends them scurrying down their holes.. - - No Trees The yellow brown land scape stretches for miles with out running into a single tree. If the earth were not round, there would be no end to the wheat fields you could see, especially with a strong tele scope. For here it is wheat and not corn that comes close to being as "high as an elephant's eye." : Suddenly, plunked, down in the middle oftnowhere, like an oasis in the steppe, you come upon a settlement of more than 5,000 people with cottages, stores, schools, barns storehouses and machine re pair shops. Five years ago, there was nothing and no one on this land. In November, 1954, the first pioneers arrived, carting their tents on their backs. One Si berian winter later, barracks began to replace some of the tents . and by the spring of 1956, 12,000 hectares (nearly 30,000 acres), of winter wheat had' ripened. Six thousand more hectares followed and that fall the first delivery of 1,300,000 poods (almost 47 million pounds) was in the hands of the Soviet government. Hard-Going ; . ? Kaskelensky - State Farm was .a going concern, a hard going one- The year 1957 saw the acre age expanded, ' but it also brought little rainfall and the harvest was none too good. The farmers discovered that growing wheat in dry south ern Kazakhstan is a risky business-water has to be pumped up to irrigate every square foot of sown land. Better not to put all your eggs in one basket. So the? settled on 24,000 hectares of wheat and went in for sheep, livestock and poultry raising as well. .. ; : " The farm already has 47,000 sheep, 2,000 head of livestock and 9,000 chickens and is aim ing for more. Horses and camels, traditional load bear ers in" Kazakhstan, help trac LJLI The . " - . tors and combines with the heavy work. Kaskelensky settlers came from all over the Soviet Un ion. Besides Russians, Ukran ians and Kazakhs,. there are some 14 other nationalities, including Azerbaidzhanians, Kalmuks, Tatars and lots -of Volga Germans whom Stalin exiled 'to the republic before the war. . Like Mushrooms Four hundred of the farm's families now live, in individ ual two and three room cot tages, strewn like mushrooms over the land. ' 'Small windows, thick walls and ; special roofing help to keep the inside cool in sum mer and warm in the well-below-freezing winters. Young trees and kitchen garden vineyards are begin ning to give some shade out-of-doors. And the dust is slowly com ing under control - that inde structible dust which is eve rywhere: in your nostrils, on your furniture and in your food. "You should have seen it the first year," the farmers say. "We had a visiting for eign photographer here ' and every time he raised his cam era it was to shoot the dust." No one who has ever lived in a dust bowl can imagine what life is like in the hun dreds of new farms in Soviet Siberia, like this one. Few' Prospects . ' You battle against nature all day. with few . prospects for pleasure in the. evening. "About - all there is to do when you get home is to read, listen to the radio and make children," is how one Rus sian put it. , In the first few years, the lack of recreation and espe cially' the scarcity of girls were the main reasons why some of the young' people quit the Virgin Lands. The farm's deputy director explained: "A fellow often had . to travel many kilometers to find a wife and when he found one the temptation not to return was great." - Last year . the Communist Party met this problem by ap pealing in newspapers all oyer the country for volunteer beer with over 103 years of brewing artistry. We wouldn't reveal it for all the hops from here to Milwaukee, but it's yours in every glass of today's light, lively Blitz. Why settle for less? Bring on Blitz, the beer with a pas8 ' 103 YEARS OF QUALITY Cambodia Police Pnom Penh, Cambodia-fliPE-Authorities investigating Mon day's palace bombing have ordered the arrest of " "a number" of members- of the anti-government underground, it was reported today. V ' The arrests resulted from a palace guard officer's report that he received a letter sign ed by the underground last week advising him. to resign his post because "we are go ing to' wipe out the whole royal family." ' : Prince-Vakrivan, chief of palace protocol, and two other members of . the royal staff were killed when a package addressed to King Suramarit and Queen Sisowath exploded while it was ; b e i n g un wrapped. ' ' ' ' , v The king and queen escap ed injury because an appoint ment called them away from the. room where the package was being unwrapped about rwo minuces before it blew up. girls. It warned them that they were in for a rough time, but promised them their pick of boy friends and husbands who would appreciate them. For more than 20,000 girls, this was a promise too good to resist and they came and are ' still coming to Kaz akhstan. . ' ; Enough. Women - "Now we have enough women" said the deputy di rector. "And . :td ' keep vthe young people we have built an outdoor concrete dance floor where a home grown, or chestra plays in the evenings, and soon we will put up our own palace of culture.". In looking over the Virgin Lands, where good harvests still do not come easily and where life begins at the bare bones, one wonders why, the Soviet leaders undertook this tremendous project of plow ing up 21 million hectares of new earth in five years. " An English agricultural ex pert who toured the area said that from the farmer's view point it would make much more sense to try to double wheat output, in the fertile Ukraine than to take such a risk here in uncertain land. a past .- - ' " y . ... . : . State's 13 Interim Committee Costing About Quarter Million baiem-lUPD-CJregonians are paying about a quarter of a million dollars for 13 interim committees" appointed by the 1959 Legislature to study criti cal state problems. The committees are charged with reporting their recom mendations to the 1961 Legis lature after study and hear-, ings slated for all parts of the state. . Included on the committees which are designed to keep study rolling in key areas be tween legislative sessions every two years-are senators, representatives and, in' some cases, lay members appointed by the governor for their spe cialized knowledge. . v . Most expensive committee is one on education which is chairmaned by Sen. Ward Cook (D-Portland). The Legis lature appropriated $73,000 for a study of school finance and . other . pressing school problems. - - '- - ' Rep. Clarence Barton (D-Co-quille) again heads the interim tax committee, another major group which is investigating the state's tax structure with an eye to getting more indus try, for Oregon. The Legisla ture appropriated $25,000 for this purpose. .. Another area where the state spends large amounts of Quotes From the Hews By United Press International . Paris Gen. Charles de Gaulle, after meeting in secret talks' with President Eisenhower: - "Sometimes even close friends find themselves for a moment apart." - , , ; . Paris President Eisenhower, after, speaking of de Gaulle's "stubborness" of which he had considerable ex perience in North Africa during World War II: . "As long as he is stubborn in the spirit of principle and ef right and peace, this is a powerful inspiration for us all." Washington James R. Hoffa, President of the Teamsters Union, discussing pending labor legislation: .'There is little or no difference between the killer Lan-drum-Griffin bill, which passed the House, and the so-called compromise bill. Should the compromise bill become law, it would indeed be a black day for labor." Venice, Calif. Attorney Al Mathews, who is applying for an' entertainment permit for a Beatnik Center here, when asked about the noise some residents had complained about: "I asked the Beatniks to stop the bongo playing, but they protested this and said beating bongos was a release for antagonism. I felt they should be allowed to do. this, but I asked them to beat them in the basement in a place I set aside for them." ' Key Feeding to World Population Held by Botanists MontreaWScience Service) Seaweed and algae are not the miracles that will dampen the fuse on the "O-bomb"-"O" f or overpopulation-thai is now threatening to explode. Neither will turning tropi cal jungles or barren deserts into farmland provide enough food for the millions xof peo ple. The main hope for feed ing them will come from in creasing future pihnt produc tivity, per unit area through out the world. This is what Dr. E.' C. Stak man, plant pathologist at the University of Minnesota, told scientists here recently at the 9th International Botanical Congress. "Plants hold the ba sic natents on which depends Rman's earthly existence," he sf,id. BecSus of this, "Botan ists ara among the most im portant people in the world, for it is they who are the ex plorers, the interpreters and the reformers in the plant kingdom." During the ten-day confer ence, he .pointed out,, tne world population will be in creased by "another .Mon- l-eal." Close' to : 1,300,000 more persons will need to be fed. . Seaweed and Algae Right now there" are many serious problems and difficul ties in using foods such as sea weed and algae. Cost, engi neering, methods of cultiva tion are some of the un knowns. It is doubtful, Dr. Stakman indicated, that the pressing urgency of feeding 45,000,000 new mouths a year can be met by these crops. There are some prospects', but few certainties, that substanH tial areas of new lands can be provided, for agriculture, the American botanist said. Birth control, which many persons advocate as an answer to overpopulation, is not only difficult to implement, it does not answer , the present over population problem. However, there are three basic ways in which .agricul tural productivity can be in creased: 1. Breeding and se lecting better, plants;, 2. Im proved plant nutrition; 3. Im proved plant protection. With research directed to these fields, significant increases in food- production can be achieved ina relatively short time, Dr. Stakman said. The past has already shown what can be done with "breed ing, feeding and protection," money is being studied by the Interim Committee on Public Welfare, which is responsible for studying the state's wel f .re program and also the ad ministration and enforcement of public welfare laws. Rep. Grace Pech (D-Port-land)) is chairman of this com mittee, which also received a $25,000 appropriation. Some committees such as the "ones on Executive Ap pointments and Traffic Court Rules required no appropria tion while the interim com mittee on . highways uses , its own funds to study all phases of motor transportation. The important highway committee is headed by Sen. Anthony Yturri (R-Ontario). . The Committee on Traffic Court Rules is a new one, de signed to study traffic of fenses, including arrests, traf fic tickets, fines and court procedures. Included on the committee are Attorney Gen eral Robert Y. Thornton, Capt. Farley Mogan of the state po lice, Vern HilL director of the state0 motor vehicle de partment, plus lawyers and judges. Criminal Law Revisions A valuable service is per formed by the emergency board composed of four sen ators and five representatives he pointed out. Ursuilable Regions Strains of corn and wheat, bred- especially to survive drought, disease and other ca tastrophes, have virtually dou bled yields and made it pos sible to grow crops in sup posedly unsuitable . regions. Adding micronutrients" to the soil can increase crop yields many times. As an example, Dr. Stakman said that the ad dition of one pound an acre of ammonium molybdenate to soil' that had been fertilized increased the '. yield of one kind of clover ten times. The best-bred and best-fed crop will be useless for food if it is not protected to insure that the increased yield will be maintained from year to year. Even in, the U.S., the botanist said, yields from im portant economic crops will vary greatly. In the underdeveloped coun tries, where maintaining the food supply is almost always a precarious endeavor, an un foreseen storm or insect plague can be disastrous. These countries. Dr. Stakman suggested, mig$t do well to devote some' 75 per cent of their research funds to pre venting or ' alleviating the physical hunger of the people. Experimentation "There is need for experi mentation to determine when and where the facts and prin ciples revealed by research can be applied to the solution of the food problem" he said. International Institutes to study basic and regional bo tanical problems related to the food problem could help. HERTZ. TRUCK RENTAL Available at HOPKINS RICHFIELD SERVICE McAndrews at Court Phone SP 3-9068 0 who must pass on money mat ters for various state agen cies while the Legislature is not in session. A revision of Oregon's crim inal law will be studied by an interim committee headed by Sen. Carl H. Francis (R Dayton). Four district attor neys will help the legislators with this complex subject. Labor management rela tions also will get a worlftig over from a committee head ed by Sen. Harry D. Boivin Sleeping Bags Ml i .wool filled f. V TERMS AS LOW AS 50c A WEEK v V HI-POWER pSI mM) Binoculars fTxSL Hard-Coatsd Optics jU MS ?J88 ( 7 x 35..-...-.18.88 MbSLM I 4 V 8 x 30 ........ 18.88 XsC !fflMf h - With Leather Case Ijill' ' As Low as 50c j) fa. A WEEK ?fr j NEW LOOK 1' I! 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Store Hours 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ; OPEN NEXT TUESDAY UNTIL 9 P.M. Medford MAIL TRIBUNE, MedforJ, Or. Thursday, Sept. 3, 1959 Coos 6a Awarded Television Channel Washington-(UPD-A Federal Communications commission examiner Wednesday recom mended award of TV channel 11 at Coos Bay, Ore., to Pa cific Television, Inc. . TOOTH STAINS TOBACCO COFFEE recommended by dentists to remove stains from teeth. Stain-free teeth look bright, feel wonderfuL CPJ5E49o79d 1 i itri w-m .tn -1 Reg. 3.95 Molded Plastic AIR MATTRESS $99 13.95 18.95 21.95 5)95 Phone SP 3-5348 at ) I 3
