From the August 13, 1935 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:
The preliminary report of the most recent census of agriculture is likely to be somewhat baffling to Islanders who try to interpret its figures for the Vineyard. These statistics have just been released in preliminary form. They show an increase in Island farms, in the five year period from 1930 to 1935, from 7 to 118 — an astonishing growth likely to rejoice the advocate of better agricultural economy here. But in the same five years, the farm acreage on the Vineyard is reported to have fallen off from 16,064 to 11,968 acres, a fact hard to reconcile with the increase in farms.
The answer seems to be that recent years have seen a rapid increase in the number of truck gardens, rated as farms by the census, and a curtailment of the larger farms of many acres. This is not necessarily discouraging. The type of farming for which the Vineyard seems destined to hold the best opportunities, both of marketing and of production, is intensive and specialized. In wholesale farming it is doubtful if we can compete with the mainland; but in raising fine vegetables and produce to be consumed, for instance, by the summer population, we should shut the mainland out.
The number of livestock is shown by the census to have decreased, as, of course, Islanders have clearly seen. The number of sheep shows the greatest drop, unfortunately, having fallen from 1,941 in 1930 to 558 in 1935.
A reader of the Gazette sends in a clipping from the July 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, on the subject of milk and sea food. An editorial some time ago in the Gazette treated on this issue. The clipping reads as follows:
“To the Editor:—Time and time again one hears that it is bad for the health to eat ice cream after sea food. Is there any truth in this statement from the medical standpoint of incompatibility? Kindly omit name. M.D., Pennsylvania.
“Answer.—We can think of no logical reason why ice cream should not be eaten after sea food, any more than we can see why cream should not be eaten with cherries, or meats with starches. It is possible that a deep student of folklore or of ancient medicine might reveal the source of some of these prohibitions. Some of them can actually be traced back to the day when all foods were classified as warming, cool, dry or moist, so that they might be used for combating the various “humors” which for hundreds of years were thought to be the cause of disease. Today the expression “cool as a cucumber” is used simply because cucumbers happened to be in the list of foods that were cooling to the third degree. Theoretically they could not be eaten with foods that were warming to the third degree.”
Capt. Ted Morgan of the schooner Kelpie, came from Woods Hole Saturday for the weekend here with his family.
E. Issokson, who plies a bust needle, has preserved his record of letting no season pass without doing his bit to keep the yacht flotilla in commission. This time it was the big yawl Chinook which split her jib, and the sail, delivered to Issokson’s shop by Argie Humphreys, was duly and truly repaired, and the vessel went on her way with all four lowers set and drawing.
William G. Manter, proprietor of the county’s largest business establishment, was 70 years old on Saturday. Will didn’t do anything in the way of celebrating, said he was too busy, in fact. He made this observation from the cross-arm of a sixty-foot telephone pole to which he had shinned a few minutes previous. Will is getting ready to go down East for the deer season, and always practices up on his tree climbing before he goes. No, the deer are not found in trees, but it’s handy to know how to climb in moose country.
Several porpoises, playing in the inner harbor Saturday, created a great deal of attention as they made their way past Tower Hill down toward Katama.
Percy McDonough invites the world to gaze on his new computing gasoline pump, the first on the Island. This instrument not only keeps track of the amount of gas received by a patron, but displays the price per gallon, and adds up the total amount of the bill. Percy was rather proud of this pump until someone observed that John D. must have got on him at last. Then he looked thoughtful and expressed a certain amount of indignation.
Nelson Bryant landed six blues off Noman’s yesterday, weighing five to six pounds apiece.
Compiled by Hilary Wallcox
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