30 Years Ago
Week of July 19, 1994
Goland Finds
Jackpot of Mushrooms
On the North Fork
The day after a nice rain July 9, I found and harvested over two pounds of the King Bolete, Boletus edulis, in a wooded cow pasture near our place near Cherry Grove on the North Fork. This is one of the most prized edible mushrooms, called “porcini” in Italy, “cep” in France, and “steinpilz” in Germany. The top of the cap resembles a hamburger bun, and the pores (no gills on this mushroom) underneath are off-white bruising tawny; the stems are thick and bulbous.
I also found a new spectacularly beautiful American Caesar’s mushroom, Amanita caesarea. This is a good edible mushroom in the Amanita family, which contains a number of deadly species. Fortunately, with its smooth red cap and bright yellow gills, it doesn’t have poisonous look-a-likes. It’s the only Amanita that I would eat.
In the same pasture I found several other species of mushrooms that were not edible, or if edible not particularly tasty, or that I couldn’t clearly identify. I’d be happy to try to identify mushrooms in good condition that you find.
40 Years Ago
Week of July 19, 1984
Wash Bathing Suit
After Each Use
Wearing that damp bathing suit may act as an incubator for bacteria. Don’t take chances with your health.
Washing your bathing suit thoroughly with suds and water before and after each wearing is a good preventive aid.
Certainly, washing it after each wearing preserves the garment. Chlorine (or salt), sand, and perspiration are hard on fabric.
Nitrogen and Mulch
Help Tomatoes
Produce Well
When tomato plants start to set fruit, they need considerable nitrogen. If the soil does not have a sufficient amount of that element at that time, the quality and quantity of tomatoes will be greatly reduced.
To be sure that this condition does not develop in your garden this year, put about one tablespoon full of ammonium nitrate around each plant. Apply in a circle on top of the ground and keep it about three inches out from the plant. Be careful not to get the material against the stem, however, because it will likely damage it.
Mulching your tomatoes also might prove very helpful, particularly if it remains dry during July and August. A mulch may be the best step a gardener can take to reduce blossom-end rot, which is caused by irregular water supply. It also keeps unstaked tomatoes clean, and makes it easier to walk in the garden when the soil is wet. And, when the mulch is worked into the soil later on, it will add a lot of valuable organic matter.
50 Years Ago
Week of July 18, 1974
Catbirds Are Looked Upon with Two Views
Common in W. Va.
BY: GEORGE BREIDING
Extension Specialist
Outdoor Recreation
Catbirds are sleek, trim-looking birds. They’re smaller than the robin, slate grey with a black cap and black tail. Another spot of color frequently not seen is a patch of reddish brown underneath the moderately long rounded tail.
This species gets it main common name from its mewing-like call note. Its song is melodic but with a series of disjointed squeaky notes and phrases.
Some of its other common names are chicken bird, cat flycatcher, slate-colored mocking bird and black-capped thrush. Its official common name according to the American Ornithologist Union is gray catbird.
The nest of the catbird is rather bulky, made of dry leaves, twigs, roots and grasses lined with rootlets and grass and placed in bushy trees, shrubs and thickets within 10 feet of the ground. The eggs are plain deep bluish green, much darker colored than the robin’s.
The catbird has a dual nature. At times it is shy and retiring and even cautious in its relationship with humans. At other times it will perch or hop about in full view with an air of sociability.
Catbirds are also looked upon with two views. They eat large numbers of insects, but in turn, are likely to slip in and take a few berries as they ripen in the garden. For this reason they are regarded as a nuisance, with little thought given to the good they do as insect eaters.
The catbird is scattered throughout the United States and lower Canada during the nesting season. It winters from the southern states down into tropical America.
It arrives in West Virginia the latter part of April and stays until about the first week or middle October depending on the location in the state.
The catbird is a common species and one that you should become acquainted with. If you don’t know it, you may confuse it with the gray-colored young starlings or with the female and young cowbirds, or female blackbirds. The long tail and black cap of the catbird distinguish it from other birds.
By planting some shrubs like mock orange, lilac, viburnum and brush honeysuckle, you can invite catbirds to be one of your wildlife neighbors.
60 Years Ago
Week of July 16, 1964
100 YEARS AGO
By LON K. SAVAGE
Editor’s Note—The following is one of a series of articles on the Civil War. Each weekly installment covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago.
Davis Fires Johnston; Forrest Is Defeated
As the hard-driving Federal army of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman approached the suburbs of Atlanta 100 years ago this week, a telegram from Richmond arrived at Atlanta, addressed to Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, commander of the Confederate army defending the city.
From the Confederate Adjutant General Samuel Cooper, the telegram read in part: “I am directed by the Secretary of War to inform you that, as you have failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to vicinity of Atlanta and express no confidence that you can defeat or repel him, you are hereby relieved from the command of the Army and Department of Tennessee, which you will immediately turn over to Gen. Hood.”
Thus ended, for a time, a long smoldering feud between Johnston and Confederate President Jefferson Davis. All during May as Johnston retreated before Sherman’s army, Davis fired off messages demanding to know why Sherman was not attacked. Johnston, eyeing a Federal army twice the size of his, asked for further help but did not receive it.
Public opinion turned against Johnston, too, as Sherman took more and more of Georgia, and Braxton Bragg, Davis’ right-hand-man, was working behind the scenes to get Johnston fired and replaced by Bragg’s friend, Hood. Finally, on July 17, Davis administered the blow, and Hood was in command.
John B. Hood, 33 years old and Kentucky born, was brave as a lion; all agreed to that. But in Sherman’s opinion, Hood also was “not deemed much of a scholar, or of great mental capacity,” and many agreed to that, too.
Within two days after assuming command, Hood was to have ample opportunity to show his fighting merit as Johnston stepped quietly and sadly down.
Meanwhile in Mississippi, the one Confederate general who made a habit of winning in the west—Nathan Bedford Forrest—suffered one of his few defeats that week.
Early in July, an army of 14,000 Federals under Gen. A. J. Smith had set out from La Grange, Tenn., to find and defeat the famous Forrest. By happenstance, Smith found Forrest near Tupelo, Miss., at a time when Forrest was operating under another general’s orders, and Forrest never was at his best unless he was running his own battles.
On June 13, Smith was nearing Tupelo when Forrest, under orders from Gen. S. D. Lee, fell upon Smith’s rear. Misfortune started at once, as his men were beaten off by a brigade of Negroes and a Kansas cavalry detachment. That night, Smith encamped atop a knoll at Harrisburg, a mile from Tupelo, and prepared his defense.
At 7:30 next morning, Forrest, with about 6,000 men, dismounted his command and charged. Four times, his men went forward, and each time they were driven back with heavy loss. That night, they charged again, and again they met defeat.
Next morning, the 15th, Forrest prepared for another attack but was met, instead by a Federal charge, that broke his line. Forrest, himself, was shot in the toe, and his men were forced to retreat.
It was not a catastrophe for Forrest. Although his 1,300 casualties were double Smith’s and although he was forced to ride in a buggy afterward because of his wound, his fighting days were far from over. Nevertheless, Forrest was never again to fill his depleted ranks.
Next week: The Battle of Atlanta.
70 Years Ago
Week of July 15, 1954
Franklin Gets New
Lumber Mill; Will Begin Operations Monday
See $25,000 Monthly
For Labor & Logs
A new saw mill which will employ twenty-five men and have an outlay of approximately $1,000 per day for labor and logs is scheduled to begin operations in Franklin Monday.
Operating under the name of Franklin Lumber Company, the new plant will utilize the Bennie Snyder saw mill property in north Franklin which was recently operated by the Franklin Walnut Company.
The plant will be operated by W. R. Serber of Staunton, who has leased the Snyder property. Serber resigned his job as manager of the Floyd Lumber Mill at Natural Bridge, and the Holston River Lumber Company at Staunton to go into business here.
Serber said that he would operate a dry kiln in connection with the saw mill and that he planned to install a planing mill soon. He said that he also expects to add a building supply department and handle all types of building needs and materials.
Several men have been working on the mill for the past two weeks getting it ready to begin sawing Monday. Serber said that he would employ approximately twenty-five men at first but that more would be needed when dry lumber becomes available and that probably they would employ as many as thirty-five men when they get into full production. He said he expected the payroll and cost of logs to amount to $25,000 monthly.
The new plant will handle both hard and soft wood and they will buy logs delivered at the mill as well as timber on the stump. Logs can be hauled to the mill profitably within an area of fifty miles from the plant, it was pointed out.
- B. Owen of Bluefield will be the plant foreman. Both Serber and Owen plan to move their families here as soon as they can locate suitable living accommodations.
EDITORIAL
What’s Happened
to Old Glory? – – –
What has happened to the American Flag? It seems that we see it so seldom anymore. Not too many years ago on the Fourth of July the Stars and Stripes flew from practically every front door in Franklin. This past Independence Day it would have been difficult to have found a half-dozen flags displayed in the entire town. Why? Having lived through two or three wars, has our patriotism become exhausted, have we forgotten what the American Flag stands for, or are we just growing indifferent?
We are concerned, not only because we seldom see Old Glory anymore, but also because of the lack of respect which it elicits when it is displayed in public. During the firemen’s Independence Day parade through Franklin recently, the American Flag was proudly carried by a detachment of the Sugar Grove Veterans of Foreign Wars. Certainly there were few persons standing along the street that day who did not experience a tingling of the spine as the Stars and Stripes went by, but in entirely too few cases did that tingle of patriotism elicit an act of respect. Why do so many of us fail to salute the flag as it passes in a parade? If it is because we are uncertain of the proper method of doing it, let us take a look at Public Law 829 which was passed by the Seventy-seventh Congress of the United States. Public Law states:
“When the flag is passing in a parade or in a review, all persons present should face the flag, stand at attention, and salute. Those present in uniform should render the military salute. When not in uniform, men should remove the headdress with the right hand holding it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Men without hats should salute in the same manner. Aliens should stand at attention. Women should salute by placing the right hand over the heart. The salute to the flag in the moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes.”
The American Flag has survived foreign wars, sneak attacks by aggressive nations and internal disturbances within our country. Let us not destroy it with ignorance and indifference. Let us display and honor Old Glory.
