Royal Canin

Royal Canin is a French manufacturer of cat and dog food. A subsidiary of Mars, Incorporated, the company also undertakes research into the formulation and testing of breed and symptom specific nutritional requirements of dogs and cats.
It was established by a French veterinary surgeon after he successfully treated a number of skin and coat conditions in pets by feeding them a cereal-based diet he prepared in his garage. After importing an extruder from the US, the company was the first to manufacture dry pet food in France. Aimed primarily at breeders, production steadily increased and distribution extended further into the European market. Sold to the Guyomarc'h Group in 1972, it underwent a further period of expansion, especially in the area of research and development, before being purchased by the Paribas Bank in 1990. The company was floated on the French stock exchange but removed later after it was sold to Mars, Incorporated.
History.
The company was established by the French veterinary surgeon Jean Cathary in 1968. He had a veterinary practice in a village in the Gard region of France and was concerned many people's pets were being presented with a variety of health problems, especially skin and coat conditions. Convinced the cause was dietary, Cathary devised a cereal–based recipe, which he prepared in an oven in his garage.
The diet successfully alleviated the problems pets were presented with, so in 1968, Cathary registered the food with the trademark “Royal Canin”. He closed his veterinary practice to concentrate on manufacturing and distributing the feed. An extruder was imported from the U.S. and Royal Canin became the first manufacturer of dry pet food in France and the first European company to use an extruder. The target market was primarily breeders and German Shepherd associations; television advertising was used to promote the product, something which was not being undertaken by competitors.
Production steadily increased and in 1970, the company was incorporated as "Royal Canin S. A."; a larger factory was opened in Aimargues and began distribution throughout Europe. Forty staff were employed in the annual production of five–thousand five hundred tons of feed. A subsidiary, Royal Canin Iberica, was established in Spain. In March 1972, Cathary sold the company to the Guyomarc'h Group, a much larger, family-run animal feed business founded by Jean Guyomarc’h in 1954, which specialised in livestock feed.
The period under the ownership of Guyomarc'h saw a marked expansion of the company, particularly in the area of research and development. A dedicated research centre was opened in Saint-Nolff, Brittany, during 1973. Over the ten years up to 1982 additional subsidiaries were also set up in other European countries. These included Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Germany and Denmark. Another factory was built in northern France to service sales in the countries of the north of Europe.
The Guyomarc'h group of companies was purchased by the Paribas Bank in 1990. Royal Canin recorded a loss in 1993; the following year the Guyomarc'h group was divided into four separate businesses, one of which remained as Royal Canin. The bank wished to sell Royal Canin but its chairman managed to persuade it to list it on the Paris stock exchange instead, which took place in 1997. Forty–three percent of the company was floated on the stock market and it raised the company's valuation to four and half billion francs. The additional revenue raised provided the funding to buy Crown Pet Foods in 1999 and the James Wellbeloved brand in 2000.
The bank sold its holding in the company to Mars, Incorporated in July 2001 for in excess of one and a half billion euros. The majority of this payment, almost ninety–three percent, was for "goodwill". The European Commission only agreed to the takeover by Mars if Royal Canin disposed of some assets to Agrolimen, a Spanish company. Royal Canin was removed from the stock exchange listing after the take over by Mars.
In March 2004, Royal Canin acquired the US and Canadian veterinary-grade food brands IVD, Medi–Cal and Techni–Cal from Del Monte Foods for $82.5 million.
The company was one of the many brands affected by the 2007 pet food recalls. As at 30 April 2012, the FDA had reported no subsequent Class I, II, or III recalls by Royal Canin.
By 2008, as much as eighty percent of Royal Canin's one and a half billion euro revenue was generated from sales outside France. The number of staff employed worldwide was around four thousand five hundred.
Research.
Royal Canin bases the production of its feeds on scientific research and set up its initial research centre dedicated to this in St-Nolff in 1973; a subsequent research centre was established in Missouri in the late 1980s, and there is also a research facility in Brazil. Products are tested on a "focus group" of eighty cats and two hundred fifty dogs. Dr Daniel Cloche was one of the scientists first working at the company's French research facility and he has been described as "one of the pioneers in researching bone–related disorders and diseases among dogs". Research indicated bone problems in large dogs could be dietary, so different recipes were developed to specifically address this. In 1980, Royal Canin brought out a new feed called AGR especially for puppies categorised as large breeds. At that time, the company also turned its attention towards producing cat foods to suit specific dietary requirements.
Henri Lagarde was chairman of the company during the 1990s and was the driving force behind implementing three core policies. These were that the physiology and biology of pets should be studied to increase the company's knowledge base; all products had to address specific needs, which was further endorsed by the Research and Development section having mandatory instructions that "no veterinarian or university should be able to refute any of Royal Canin's nutritional arguments"; and finally, animals and their nutritional requirements were to be treated with "knowledge and respect" rather than being humanised. The company theme became "knowledge and respect".
Veterinary and peer-reviewed journals.
With the help of academics, the company also produce encyclopedias about dog and cat breeds, which have been translated into fifteen languages. There are also books on breeding, nutrition and publications aimed at breeders and veterinary surgeons. Royal Canin also published the scientific quarterly titled "FOCUS" which was circulated to in excess of seventy thousand veterinarians worldwide in eleven different languages. "FOCUS" is now called "Veterinary Focus" magazine. This is in addition to the one thousand four hundred fifty veterinary literatures produced for the Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition.
Recruitment of specialists and sponsorships.
In 1994, Lagarde was determined the company should be seen as dealing with "specialists". He insisted that the word "traditional" must never be used and the word was removed from every document and company computer file being replaced by "specialist' instead.
There are teams of trained veterinary technicians to help and advise breeders and other professionals. The company coined a new description for its teams of trained sales staff as "cynotechnicians", who were already well established and passionate about the canine world; some were show judges or had gained an international reputation for their breeding skills. The company also sponsors and participates in thousands of cat and dog shows each year. The company withdrew from sponsoring the UK Contest of Champions event in 2009 but was quoted as stating it was increasing its sponsorship of dog shows.
In 2013, Four Paws, an international animal welfare group, accused Royal Canin of sponsoring events that included illegal bear-baiting in Ukraine. The company confirmed the allegations and promised to take action to put an end to its sponsorship of such events. Subsequently, the company made a commitment to support the rescue of bears used and began negotiations with the group to determine a detailed project plan.
Factories.
Royal Canin's head office is in Aimargues, southern France. There are twelve production facilities worldwide, in addition to Aimargues including at Cambrai in northern France; Johannesburg, South Africa; Descalvado, Brazil; and González Catán, near Buenos Aires, Argentina]].
The plant located in Rolla, Missouri, produces only dry pet feeds. Royal Canin was fined for "violating the Clean Water Act" in 2005 at this site.
In 2004, production facilities at Dmitrov, near Moscow, Russia, opened. Royal Canin committed twelve million euros in the construction of the factory and anticipated annual production of twenty–two thousand tons a year.
The Polish government announced construction was to start in February 2006 on a fifty million euro factory in Niepołomice, Poland, which would provide employment for in excess of one hundred fifty staff. At the time of the announcement, it was described as "the ninth and most modern of all of those which belong to the company"; this was because of the laboratory that was to be included in the design.
The company's first UK facility, at Castle Cary, near Bristol, opened in December 2007, two years later than expected. Annual production was expected to be two thousand tons, employing eighty staff. Although objections were raised by some local residents, others welcomed the facility. The Environment Agency received complaints of an "unbearable smell" after production started. The company installed carbon filters and a new condenser at a cost of a million pounds in attempts to address the problem.
In 2008, the company invested seventy–three million dollars in the construction of a factory at Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
A factory at North Sioux City, South Dakota, USA, was originally purchased by Mars in 2007 and worked under the Mars Petcare brand. This was then re-branded to Royal Canin in 2011, where it manufactures both wet and dry pet food.
Royal Canin's twelfth production facility was fully built at the end of 2009 and is located in Shanghai, China.
2016 saw the addition of Fremont, Nebraska and in 2017 Lebanon, Tennessee. A new plant has been opened in 2017 in South Korea in Gimje, North Jeolla Province.
References.
Bibliography


2020 Iditarod

The 2020 Iditarod is the 48th iteration of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska. The race began on Saturday, March 7, 2020, in Anchorage, Alaska and was won by Thomas Waerner on March 18, in Nome. There was 58 mushers signed up to participate, including former champions and noted racers Robert Bundtzen, Martin Buser, Peter Kaiser, Lance Mackey, Nicolas Petit, Mitch Seavey, Joar Leifseth Ulsom, and Aliy Zirkle. The race was one of the few spring 2020 American sports events not canceled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but, following Alaska's first coronavirus case on March 13, checkpoints were relocated or eliminated and gathering in Nome for the finish was discouraged.


Sarabi dog

The Sarabi dog, also known as the Iranian shepherd dog, Persian mastiff, or Iranian mastiff, is a breed of livestock guardian dog from the East Azerbaijan Province in northern Iran, taking their name from the Sarab County.
Sarabi dogs have been used for centuries by local shepherds to protect herds of sheep and goats from bears, wolves, jackals and other local predators. Persian mastiff is calm, controlled, independent, powerful and protective, the breed is also used to complete in staged dog fights. The breed is considered one of the oldest and most powerful indigenous dog breeds in Iran, the larger and heavier an individual dog is, the greater its value.


Bee bole

A bee bole is a cavity or alcove in a wall (the Scots word "bole" means a recess in a wall). A skep is placed in the bee bole. Before the development of modern bee hives (such as the design published by Lorenzo Langstroth in 1853), the use of bee boles was a practical way of keeping bees in some parts of Britain, although most beekeepers kept their skeps in the open covered by items suitable for the purpose, such as old pots or sacking. The bee bole helped to keep the wind and rain away from the skep and the bees living inside. Bee keeping was a very common activity in the past before sugar became plentiful and affordable as a sweetener. Demand was also a high for beeswax for candles, especially from the prereformation churches, cathedrals, and abbeys; tithes and rents were often paid in honey and/or beeswax, or even bee swarms.
Distribution.
Bee boles and other protective structures for skeps are found across almost the whole of the British Isles, particularly in areas exposed to wind and/or rain, such as eastern Scotland, northern and south-western England, and parts of Wales. Bee boles have also been recorded in certain areas of France (144 sets by 2004), and a few are known to exist elsewhere in Europe. Other names for bee boles include bee holes, bee shells (Cumbria), bee keps (Cumbria), bee niches (Derbyshire), bee walls (Gloucestershire), bee houses (Yorkshire), bee boxes (Kent) and bee garths.
Location at a property.
The purpose of a bee skep was to house bees so that wax and honey could be obtained. The bees were often kept in gardens or orchards where there were flowers providing nectar and pollen. A further benefit was that the bees pollinated the flowers, although this was not discovered until 1750. Among the many walled gardens with bee boles, two fine examples at properties open to the public are: Packwood House, Warwickshire (Register No. 0015) and Brodick Castle on Arran (Register No. 1078).
Bee boles were often built close to the dwelling house so that swarms could be detected and captured quickly; in addition, it helped to familiarise the bees with human presence and activity. Honey was often stolen, so keeping the bees close to the house helped to deter thieves - some bee boles had a padlocked metal bar that served both to prevent theft and to hold in place a wooden board across the front of the bole whilst the bees were overwintering.
Bee boles were most often built in walls facing in southerly or easterly directions (depending on the direction of prevailing winds), so that the bees would be warmed by the morning sun.
Age of bee boles.
The oldest surviving bee boles may date from the 12th century, and examples have been recorded from every century after that. The 18th and 19th centuries seem to have been the heyday of bee bole construction, especially on large country house estates, although many were also built on farms or in cottage gardens. The shapes of old bee boles can sometimes be seen in walls where they have been filled in with brick or stone, with only the outline remaining.
Design and construction of bee boles and bee shelters.
Surviving bee boles are built in stone, brick, or cob walls; some found in sandstone walls have shaped, arched tops. Many stone bee boles are in drystone walls, but others are mortared. Generally, the height and width of a bee bole is between 12 and 18 in (30-45 cm) and the depth is similar or slightly less; those in Scotland tend to be a bit larger as skeps were often wrapped in sacks or dry bracken in the winter (in eastern Scotland, bee boles should not be confused with charter boles, which are generally much smaller.) Brick walls are typically narrower than stone walls, thus bee boles located in brick walls are typically shallower.
The base upon which the skep sits is variable in design - circular, semicircular or square - and occasionally has a protruding lip for the bees to alight upon when they return from foraging. The hole in the skep faces onto this lip. The example at the Queen's Head Inn, Tirril, in the English Lake District, has sandstone slabs placed vertically and horizontally to produce several cavities for skeps. An ornate example set into a wall at Kersland House in Stewarton, Ayrshire, Scotland was an alcove with carved decorations.
Sometimes, larger bee boles, or 'bee alcoves' are found, which would take several skeps.
A bee shelter is a wooden or stone structure, built against a wall or free-standing, with one or more shelves to accommodate several skeps. A Victorian example is The Bee Shelter at Hartpury in Gloucestershire.
With the introduction of the Stewarton and Langstroth hives, skeps eventually ceased to be used. Bee boles were no longer made and those that survive are sometimes used for decorative purposes; although many people may be unaware of the original purpose of the recesses in the walls of their property, the majority of owners are careful to preserve or even restore their bee boles.
The arrangement of 'hedge alcoves' occasionally seen in formal gardens may be a form of bee bole, such as at Erddig Hall in Clwyd, Cymru, although this is not certain.
Some bee boles and other traditional beekeeping structures are part of a listed property, or are listed in their own right. Many examples can be found on the historic buildings websites for England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.
IBRA register.
The International Bee Research Association (IBRA) maintains a comprehensive record of bee boles in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Started by Dr Eva Crane in 1952, the register contains records for 1560 sites (as at 5 February 2014), and images for most of these. To improve accessibility to the records and to encourage conservation and further recording, the register was put into a database and made available online in 2005. The website also contains a list of publications on bee boles.


Barn Church, Culloden

The Barn Church is a parish church of the Church of Scotland at Culloden, in the Presbytery of Inverness. Although the congregation is relatively young, and only received full status as a parish church in its own right in the late 1980s, the building is of considerable historical interest. It was originally built as a tithe barn for the estate of Culloden House, and in 1746 it was used by the Jacobite army as accommodation on the night before the Battle of Culloden. During the 19th century it was used as a blacksmith's workshop, before being taken over by the East Church of Inverness as a mission station in the early 20th century. When it was granted the status of a church extension charge in the 1970s, the congregation erected a new church called "the New Barn" (designed with architectural "barn metaphors") which is joined to the old building; the historic building (the "Old Barn") today serves as the church hall. Interesting architectural features of the Old Barn include the slit windows for defensive purposes and the parallel doors which can create a wind tunnel required for winnowing.
The Church serves the Culloden, Balloch, Smithton, Westhill and Cradlehall areas on the outskirts of Inverness.
On Friday, 14 November 2014, the new minister, the Rev. Mike Robertson, was ordained and inducted. The previous minister, the Rev. Jim Robertson, had served for about 20 years.


Montgomery Worsted Mills

The Montgomery Worsted Mills, known today as Montgomery Mills, is along the Wallkill River at the end of Factory Street in the Orange County village of Montgomery, New York. It was one of the earliest efforts to harness the river for industrial purposes.
Founders Arthur Patchett and William Crabtree became prosperous and upstanding citizens who left their mark on the community they lived in. Many of the homes on the nearby stretch of Factory Street were built by them for their family, and their descendants still live in the Montgomery area. The mills are still in operation too, but are no longer property of the family or used to mill textiles. While they sell yarn, today the mill is primarily an electric power generation station. A deal is in the works to make it a City Winery.
Site.
The mills today consist of a main brick building, running north-south along the river. An east-west wing built partly over the adjacent dam and its flume is three stories high and houses the Hydroelectric turbines. Another east-west wing holds the main office and store. A second brick building slightly uphill is today leased out to an architectural moldings business. One barn, the second one built, is slightly downriver in some adjacent woods.
Factory Street becomes a gravel loop at the mill. Historically there were two large tenements for mill employees at the uphill edge of the property, but they were demolished several decades ago.
History.
The river had been dammed at the mill location since at least the 18th century, and a grist mill had long existed opposite the mill site on the west bank of the river when Johannes Miller began seeking investors for what was to be at first a cotton mill in 1813. It would be one of the earliest attempts to harness the Wallkill for industry. At that time wool came straight from locally farmed sheep and was completely processed at the mill.
The cotton mill failed before it could even begin production and nothing happened with the site until about 1870, when an English immigrant, Edmund Ackroyd, bought the property and added a three-story addition. Ten years later, William Crabtree and Arthur Patchett bought the mills, focusing its process on spinning at the expense of weaving. In 1897, they had to establish a branch mill on South Colden Street in Newburgh due to labor shortages in Montgomery.
On Election Day, November 3, 1891, the factory was burned completely to the ground and the current, 50,000-square foot (4,500 m²) structure built in its place. It would be in operation by the next summer. Another fire would destroy the Newburgh branch on May 23, 1900.
Patchett died in late 1901, and Crabtree took on his five sons as replacement partners the following year., then died himself on a return trip to England the year after that. The sons all built houses, some of which stand, on the hillside above the mill. They would later be used to house employees.
In 1906 they expanded the mill further, extending the south wing to add drawing and spinning space. The office that had been there was moved to a new north wing, which also housed sorting, scouring and carding rooms. Eight years later, the dam was rebuilt so it crossed the river in a straight line rather than at an angle. After World War I, the mill would see serious expansion. Sometime before the mid-1920s, the Wallkill Valley Railroad added a route that crossed (and still does) Factory Street near the mill, greatly shortening the distance required to put finished yarns on trains. Automobiles, too, began replacing the horse-drawn carts that had been carrying the finished product.
A new packing and sorting wing was built in 1922 and a new factory acquired on South William Street in Newburgh. However, these investments could not help the partnership survive the Great Depression, and the mills would be sold to the Steinberger family of New York. It has remained in their hands, and in business in some way, ever since.
In the late 1940s, the former houses that had been home to the workers were torn down as the expense was no longer justified. The Steinbergers gradually switched over to power generation, selling what is today 250 kilowatts of hydroelectric power to CH Energy Group. They also lease out some of the available space and offer shipping services as well. A retail store in the mill is open to the public daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., selling yarns spun for knitting and weaving.
The Steinbergers reached an agreement to sell the mill to Michael Dorf in 2018. If he is able to complete the deal and get approval from the village, he plans to convert the building into a location for his City Winery chain, possibly with some added hotel space. It would be the only location where wine would be produced on site, capable of producing 30–40,000 cases a year, using power generated by the river and solar cells to be placed on the roof.


Rocky Mount Mills

Rocky Mount Mills, located in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, was the second cotton mill constructed in the state of North Carolina, dating back to 1816. Capitol Broadcasting Company bought the mills in the 2007 and has since redeveloped it into a mixed-use campus of breweries, restaurants, lofts, office, and event space.
History.
"The first use of slaves in a North Carolina cotton mill occurred in 1817 when another planter, Colonel Joel Battle, joined with Henry A. Donaldson, a former Rhode Island manufacturer, to establish the Rocky Mount Cotton Mills on the falls of the Tar River. It contained over two thousand spindles and had a working force composed entirely of Negroes- the majority were slaves but there were also a few free Negroes. For thirty-four years Negroes were employed continuously by this company. In 1825 Henry A. Donaldson with George McNeil as his partner constructed a new mill in Fayetteville, NC approximately the size of the one in Rocky Mount. Only slaves were used as its working force."
"...Especially before the Civil War, according to historian Holland Thompson, "a majority of the people in the Middle and Western counties [of North Carolina] dressed chiefly in the clothes of domestic or local manufacture." A superintendent of the Rocky Mount Mills recalled that in the 1850s he sold most of the coarse yarns produced at the mill "in five pound bundles for the country trade- this was woven by the country women on hand looms." He sold the surplus yarns for "coarse filling for the Philadelphia market." During the antebellum period and well into the twentieth century, North Carolina was known for its "little spinning mills" that produced lower grades of yarn for home manufacture and later for the weaving mills of New England and the Middle Atlantic States."
During the last months of the conflict, the Confederacy drew its entire supply of textile goods from North Carolina mills. Northern troops recognized the significance of the textile industry's contribution to the war effort. In raids led by General William T. Sherman, Union troops laid waste to most of Eastern North Carolina's manufacturing base by burning the Rocky Mount Mill on the Tar River, the Great Falls Mill in Rockingham, NC, and five of the six mills in the Fayetteville vicinity. In the western counties, Union General George Stoneman stationed his cavalry in the Fries Woolen and Cotton Mill while his troops destroyed nearly 1,700 bales of cotton the company had stored in High Point, NC. Stoneman's raiders also set fire to Patterson's Mill in Caldwell County, a woolen mill in Guilford County, and a cotton mill in Salisbury, NC that had served as a Confederate prison during the war. Those mills that escaped direct physical destruction during the final months of the war nevertheless entered the postwar period in a weakened condition with little operating capital, obsolete or worn-out machinery, and a sharply reduced demand from local markets.
From 1825 to 1883, the Battle family maintained ownership of the mill. As the southern cotton industry expanded after the Civil War, the cotton mill experienced rapid growth. The company also supported a residential village for employees, which was eventually incorporated into the city of Rocky Mount in the 1920s. The mill was a major supplier of cotton yarn to the United States Army during World War II. The mills and surrounding mill village are included in the Rocky Mount Mills Village Historic District.
The general decline in the southern textile industry beginning in the 1970s eventually impacted Rocky Mount Mills, and the mill closed its doors in 1996.
Redevelopment.
Rocky Mount Mills has been in the process of redevelopment since 2014 by Capitol Broadcasting Company, which also owns the popular American Tobacco campus in downtown Durham, North Carolina. Its main attraction is as an incubator for craft breweries, as well as being home to a number of restaurants. The mill itself has been turned into lofts, office, and event space. The approximately 100 historical homes in the mills village have also been updated and are available to rent.
In 2019, the River and Twine hotel opened on the campus, a collection of 20 boutique tiny house hotels. The next phase of development is Goat Island on the Tar River, which will offer public access to hiking trails, sandy beaches, and paddling sports.


Rondo dwarf galago

The Rondo dwarf galago ("Paragalago rondoensis") or Rondo bushbaby is a species of primate in the family Galagidae. The dwarf galagos are the smallest members of the genus Galagoides. It weighs less than 100 grams, making it the smallest known galago. It is endemic to Tanzania where its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forests. It lives in an area reported in 2012 to be less than 100 square kilometers and is threatened by habitat loss due to logging. While it was discovered in the 1950s, the Rondo dwarf galago was deemed data deficient until 1996. In 1996, the Rondo bushbaby was fully described as a species. It is now listed as one of "The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates." In 2010, it was also added to the Zoological Society of London's list of genetically distinct and endangered mammals.
Description.
Bushbabies are small primates with long tails and large ears and eyes. They all have grooming claws, a tooth comb, and a pseudo-tongue. The Rondo bushbaby can be distinguished from other dwarf galagos by its bottle brush tail. The tail is red in young Rondo bushbabies, and darkens with age. It also has a distinctive "double unit rolling call". Two soft units comprise the call. The first is a higher pitch sound that can be repeated up to six times at a constant tempo. This forms a phrase.
Ecology.
The diet of the Rondo dwarf galago consists primarily of insects. The species also feeds on fruits and flowers. By clinging to forest life and leaping, the species can feed in the leaf litter and the understory. As nocturnal animals, they build daytime sleeping nests in the canopy. It is assumed that the Rondo dwarf galago gives birth to one or two young per year.
Habitat.
The Rondo dwarf galago is typically found in coastal dry forest and scrub in forest patches that are on eastern facing slopes and escarpments.
Distribution.
The Rondo bushbaby is known to live along the coast of Tanzania at elevations between 50–900 meters above sea level. It is found specifically in eight isolated and threatened forest patches: Zaraninge Forest within Sadaani National Park, Pande Game Reserve, Pugu/Kazimzumbwe, Rondo, Litipo, Chitoa, Ruawa and Ziwani Forest Reserves. The total known distribution encompasses an area of 92 km2. The eight subpopulations can be classified into two broad populations, one in southwest Tanzania and the other about 400 km north from there, surrounding Dar es Salaam.


Silver dapple gene

The silver or silver dapple ("Z") gene is a dilution gene that affects the black base coat color and is associated with Multiple Congenital Ocular Abnormalities. It will typically dilute a black mane and tail to a silvery gray or flaxen color, and a black body to a chocolaty brown, sometimes with dapples. It is responsible for a group of coat colors in horses called "silver dapple" in the west, or "taffy" in Australia. The most common colors in this category are "black silver" and "bay silver", referring to the respective underlying coat color.
Mature black silvers typically have sooty white or silver manes and tails with a flat, non-fading, dark grey or grey-brown body coat. The body coat frequently exhibits dapples, rings of lighter-colored hair.
Mature bay silvers retain their reddish bodies, though the presence of small amounts of silver often gives them a chocolate appearance. The mane and tail are usually a sooty silver, darker at the roots, and the legs are usually a flat, brownish-grey mottled with silver. The hair around the eyes and muzzle may also show signs of silvering.
Silver dapple foals can be difficult to identify, but commonly have a pale, wheat-colored body coat, white eyelashes, and hooves with tapering vertical stripes. These characteristics fade over time.
Red-based horses, such as chestnuts and chestnuts with other dilution factors (such as palominos, and cremello) may carry the silver dapple gene, and may pass it on to their offspring, but will not express the gene in their own body color.
Prevalence.
Many breeds do not possess the silver dapple gene. The coat color is traditionally associated with the Rocky Mountain Horse and the Miniature Horse. Scandinavian breeds and their descendants such as the Icelandic horse, Nordland Pony, Shetland Pony, Welsh Mountain Pony, Welsh Pony, Swedish Warmblood and Finnhorse are also found in the silver dapple colors. American horse breeds known to have the silver gene include the Morgan, American Saddlebred, Missouri Foxtrotter, Tennessee Walking Horse, and the American Quarter Horse. European draft breeds such as the Comtois and Ardennais also occur in silver. Historically the color was found in the Dutch Groningen, but the breed was crossbred to produce the Dutch Warmblood and underwent subsequent genetic bottlenecking, so the gene may no longer be present.
Inheritance and expression.
The silver dapple trait is caused by a missense mutation (labeled "Z") in the "PMEL17" gene on horse chromosome 6. It is transmitted by autosomal dominant inheritance (simple dominance). "PMEL17" is active from quite early in embryonic development through to the mature cell's melanosome and is involved with the production of the black pigment eumelanin.
Melanins, which provide color in the eyes, skin, and hair, are found in two types: eumelanin, which produces black to brown pigment, and phaeomelanin, which produces red to yellow pigment. Most horses can produce both types; the brown appearance of a bay horse's coat is caused by alternating bands of eumelanin and phaeomelanin, for which the agouti gene is responsible. Eumelanin predominates in the legs, mane and tail of bay horses. By contrast, horses which lack a functional agouti gene cannot produce such alternating bands, and thus have wholly black coats with no visible phaeomelanin. Chestnut horses lack the ability to manufacture eumelanin altogether, and so have wholly red coats devoid of true black pigment.
While the role of "PMEL17" is not fully understood, the silver dapple gene exclusively produces dilution, or hypopigmentation, of eumelanin. The dilution changes black into various shades of platinum, silver and flat grey, though the original black-brown character of the color is usually preserved. The effects of the gene are more striking in the mane and tail. Horses with chestnut or chestnut-family coats - such as palomino, red roan, or red dun - are therefore unaffected by the gene and may silently carry it and pass it on to their offspring.
On the template of a black horse, which has a coat rich in eumelanin, the effect is that of complete conversion to varying shades of silver. Often the body remains quite dark while the mane and tail are strongly diluted. On the template of a bay horse, which has eumelanin largely restricted to the points, these points are converted to silver while the phaeomelanic body is mostly unaffected.
An undesirable effect associated with the gene is eye problems, notably multiple congenital ocular anomalies (MCOA). MCOA has multiple clinical signs including a bulbous bulging of the eye, cornea globosa, severe iridal hypoplasia, uveal cysts, cataracts, and in a few cases, retinal detachment. These conditions can be detected via ultrasound examination of the eye. In a 2013 study of Comtois horses and Rocky Mountain Horses, all animals carrying the mutated form of "PMEL17" had some eye disorder, though milder problems in animals heterozygous for the allele versus those who were homozygous. None of the control horses of these breeds who lacked the mutated form of "PMEL17" had any eye disorder.
Similar mutations in other species provide insight into the roles played by the "PMEL17" gene. Relatively few such mutations are known, which suggests that the gene is involved in processes critical to survival. Several of the mutations known are related to pigmentation: premature silvering in mice, diluted and white plumage in chickens, and the widely known merle dilution in dogs. The merle coat in dogs is associated with auditory and ophthalmologic disorders, such as deafness and microphthalmia. In Rocky Mountain Horses, the silver dapple color is sometimes associated with Anterior Segment Dysgenesis (ASD) which affects the structures in the face and the front of the eye. Most often, the syndrome presents as benign lesions, though homozygotes may have impaired vision. As ASD is found in non-silver representatives of the breed, it is thought to be physically close to the silver gene and to have come from a silver dapple, ASD-affected foundation ancestor, thus is an example of the Founder effect.


Fendrich Cigar Company

Fendrich Cigar Company (also known as "La Fendrich" and, more correctly "H. Fendrich") was a cigar factory in Evansville, Indiana, founded and owned by notable Fendrich family. The factory was shut in 1969.
Cigar brands.
The Fendrich Company made the following brands: La Fendrich, Charles Denby, Diamond Joe, Little Fendrich, Smoke Dreams, Red Ruby, John Jenning, Lady Carmen, Mrs. Fiske, El Cuto, Five Brothers, Little Gun, Casa Nova, Globe-Democrat, Courier Journal, La Cubavana, Aaron Burr, Black Hawk and many more.
History of the company.
In 1833 the Fendrich family immigrated to Baltimore from the Margraviate of Baden in the Holy Roman Empire (today's Germany). The Germanic principalities from whence they came had a history of cigar making. In the 1840s Fendrich brothers Joseph, Karl (Charles), Franz (Francis) and Herrmann started the tobacco and cigar business.
In 1855 the company headquarters moved to 21 Main St. in Evansville. New factory complex opened in 1912, and "Fendrich Cigar Company" had around 1,500 employees at that time.


Zwiesel Forest Museum

The Zwiesel Forest Museum () in the town of Zwiesel on "Kirchplatz 3" is a cultural and natural history museum in the Lower Bavarian county of Regen. It is housed in a building formerly part of a girls' school run by an English sister. The exhibition is elaborated in German and Czech. The building also serves as the cultural centre for the town of Zwiesel.
General.
In the late 19th century a wave of museums were founded in Bavaria, which also affected Zwiesel. From 1904, documents and artefacts from the history of Zwiesel were collected and, one year later, a municipal museum was established, which was housed on the upper floor of the local mortuary. The collection grew steadily and the existing premises became too small. In 1924, the museum found a new home in the former community brewery and later in the fire brigade equipment house on the town square.
In the 1960s, its thematic focus changed. Oberforstrat Konrad Klotz (1905-1994), head of the Zwiesel forestry office, and Georg Priehäußer (1894-1974) worked towards a new concept for the museum. In 1966 they succeeded in establishing the first German forest museum in Zwiesel. The flora and fauna of the forest, as well as the subject of "wood", became the central features. These areas were supplemented by municipal and regional history as well as by the theme of "glass" for Zwiesel, which was indispensable given the centrality of glassmaking in the town.
Unusual exhibits such as the trunk details of a 400-year-old fir tree or a jungle diorama were integrated into the concept.
In 2014, the contents and design of the Forest Museum were revised once again and moved to the former girls' school on "Kirchplatz", which is located right next to the neo-Gothic church of St. Nicholas.


Hassan Musa Khan

Muhammad Hassan Musa Khan (30 May 1863 – 1939), also known as Mohamed Hasan Musakhan, Hasan Musakhan, or Hassan Musakhan, was one of the early so-called "Afghan" cameleers in Australia. Born in Karachi, a member of the Tarin tribe of Pashtuns which originates from Southern Afghanistan and Balochistan, he was a nephew of Khan Bahadur Moradkhan, the first South Asian supplier of camels to Australia. Khan was the first Ahmadiyya Muslim in Australia, and was notable for being appointed as an arbitrator in a complex 1899 court case, involving camel importation to Western Australia.
After winning a Mansfield Scholarship at school, Khan won a Frank Souter Scholarship at the University of Bombay (Mumbai) in 1887. He was a schoolteacher and headmaster in British India from 1889–92, and arrived in Australia in 1896. He was fluent in several languages including English, Pushto, Urdu, Persian, Sindhi, as well as some Arabic.
He may have brought his wife to Australia from India, according to a birth notice for his daughter, born at "Nurse Baseby's, King St in Coolgardie", in mid-1899.
Khan was a bookseller in Perth between 1904 and 1906. In 1904 he founded the Perth Mosque, and later served as its treasurer as well as secretary. He was a representative of the "camel men" at various official events between 1896 and 1927, and lived in Kalgoorlie in 1921 and in Adelaide, South Australia in 1932. He travelled to Delhi, India between 1911 and 1914. He donated books to the Battye Library in Perth.
With "wonder man" Mahomet Allum, Khan edited the booklet "The History of Islamism in Australia from 1863-1932".


Guindy National Park

Guindy National Park is a protected area of Tamil Nadu, located in Chennai, India, is the 8th-smallest National Park of India and one of the very few national parks situated inside a city. The park is an extension of the grounds surrounding Raj Bhavan, formerly known as the 'Guindy Lodge', the official residence of the Governor of Tamil Nadu, India. It extends deep inside the governor's estate, enclosing beautiful forests, scrub lands, lakes and streams.
The park has a role in both ex-situ and in-situ conservation and is home to 400 blackbucks, 2,000 spotted deers, 24 jackals, a wide variety of snakes, geckos, tortoises and over 130 species of birds, 14 species of mammals, over 60 species of butterflies and spiders each, a wealth of different invertebrates—grasshoppers, ants, termites, crabs, snails, slugs, scorpions, mites, earthworms, millipedes, and the like. These are free-ranging fauna and live with the minimal of interference from human beings. The only major management activity is protection as in any other in-situ conservation area. The park attracts more than 700,000 visitors every year.
History.
Once covering an area of of one of the last remnants of tropical dry evergreen forest of the Coromandel Coast, Guindy Park was originally a game reserve. In the early 1670s, a garden space was carved out of the Guindy forest and a residence called the "Guindy Lodge" was built by Governor William Langhorne (1672–1678), which had helped make St Thomas Mount a salubrious place for rest and recreation. The remaining of the forest area was owned by a British citizen named Gilbert Rodericks from whom it was purchased by the government in 1821 for a sum of 35,000. The original area of 505 ha was established as a Reserve Forest in 1910. Although it was speculated that Chital (spotted deer) were introduced into the park probably after 1945, it is now known that they already existed in the year 1900 along with other antelope during the tenure of the colonial Governor of Madras Sir Arthur Havelock (1895-1900) Between 1961 and 1977, about 172 ha of the forest, primarily from the Raj Bhavan, was transferred to various government departments in order to build educational institutions and memorials. In 1958, a portion of the forest area was transferred to the Union Education Ministry for establishing the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. In the same year, another portion of the land was transferred to the Forest Department for creating the Guindy Deer Park and Children's Park at the instance of the then prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. Memorials for Rajaji and Kamaraj were built in 1974 and 1975, respectively, from parcels of land acquired from the Raj Bhavan. In 1977, the forest area was transferred to the Tamil Nadu Forest Department. In 1978, the whole of the remaining area, popularly known then as the Guindy Deer Park, was declared a national park. It was walled off from the adjacent Raj Bhavan and Indian Institute of Technology Madras Campus in the late 1980s.
Habitats.
The Guindy National Park, Raj Bhavan and IIT-Madras habitat complex has historically enjoyed a certain degree of protection and has continued to support some of the last remnants of the natural habitats that typify the natural range of plant and animal biodiversity of the Coromandel-Circar coastal plains in the northeastern Tamil Nadu. The ecosystem consists of the rare tropical dry evergreen scrub and thorn forests receiving about 1200 mm of rainfall annually. This vegetation has been reclassified as the "Albizia amara" community. The region's physiognomy occurs as discontinuous or dense scrub-woodlands and thickets, containing species such as introduced "Acacia planifrons", "Clausena dentata" shrubs, palmyrah palm ("Borassus flabellifer"), "Randia dumetorum", "Randia malabarica", "Carissa spinarum", "Acacia chundra", exotic cactus "Cereus peruviana" and "Glycosmis mauritiana".
The park has a tropical dissymmetric climate. The mean annual temperatures are 32.9 °C (maximum) and 24.3 °C (minimum). Rainfall ranges from 522 to 2,135 mm, with an average annual rainfall of 1,215 mm. The summer season in April and May determines the peculiar vegetation of the Coromandel-Circar coast. Between June and December, wet season prevails, with dry season occurring between January and March. The area also has a cleared meadow called Polo Field measuring about 230 × 160 m. The park also has a lake known as the 'Tangal Eri'.
The park is protected by a perimeter wall for a length of 9.5 km. There is an extensive network of roads and trails. The road network covers about 14 km within the park. The park has two large tanks, namely, Kathan Kollai (KK Tank) and Appalam Kolam (AK Tank), in addition to two ponds, which usually dry up during summer. The presence of the park and the surrounding green areas resulted in the byname, "the green lungs of Chennai", for the Adyar–Guindy area.
Flora.
The park has a dry evergreen scrub and thorn forest, grasslands and water bodies with over 350 species of plants including shrubs, climbers, herbs and grasses and over 24 variety of trees, including the sugar-apple, "Atlantia monophylla", wood-apple, and neem. This flora provides an ideal habitat for over 150 species of birds. About one-sixth of the park has been left as open grassland to preserve that habitat for blackbucks. Though both the species of blackbuck and spotted deer have their natural habitat in grassland, the spotted deer prefer bushes and can adjust in land covered with shrubbery.
Fauna.
There are over 14 species of mammals including blackbuck, chital or spotted deer, jackal, small Indian civet, common palm civet, bonnet macaque, hyena, pangolin, hedgehog, common mongoose and three-striped palm squirrel. The park also has black-naped hare and several species of bats and rodents.
The near threatened blackbuck, considered the flagship species of the park, was introduced in 1924 by Lord Willingdon and has seen a population decline in recent times. It is now known that both Blackbucks and Chitals were a native faunal element of the park. Some albino male blackbucks were also introduced by the Maharaja of Bhavnagar. Per the census conducted on 29 February 2004, the population of Blackbuck was 405 (10 spotted in the IIT campus). The chital population in the Park, appears to have been steady or even increased in the last century. Per the census conducted on 29 February 2004, the population of the spotted deer was 2,650. Of these, 1,743 were female and 336 were fawns. The census was taken in the Guindy National Park and the adjoining areas of the Indian Institute of Technology and the Raj Bhavan campus using King's transect method, which would only reveal the numbers close to the actual figure.
The park has over 150 species of birds including grey partridge, crow pheasant, parrot, quail, paradise flycatcher, black-winged kite, honey buzzard, pariah kite, golden-backed woodpecker, yellow-wattled lapwing, red-wattled lapwing, blue-faced malkoha, shrikes, Asian koel, minivets, munias, parakeet, tailor bird, robin, drongo, and stone curlew. Bird watchers anticipate migratory birds here like teals, garganeys, pochards, medium egrets, large egrets, night herons, pond herons and open-billed storks every fall season.
The park is home to about 9 species of amphibians. There are also many kinds of reptiles, including saw-scaled viper and the fan-throated lizard. Some species of tortoise and turtles—especially the endangered star tortoise, lizards, geckos, chameleons and the common Indian monitor lizard—are found here, as well as a large variety of insects including 60 species of spiders and 60 species of butterflies.
Guindy Snake Park and Children's Park.
Guindy Snake Park, formerly the location of Madras Crocodile Bank Trust, is next to the Guindy National Park. The Snake Park in Chennai gained statutory recognition as a medium zoo from the Central Zoo Authority in 1995. There one can see king cobra, pythons, vipers and other reptiles.
For ex-situ conservation, about of the Guindy National Park has been carved out into a park known as the Children's Park and play area at the northeast corner of the national park with a collection of animals and birds. The Children's Park gained statutory recognition as a medium zoo from the Central Zoo Authority in 1995. Animals in the Children's Park include black buck, sambar, spotted deer, porcupine, jackal, python, grey pelican, night heron, cormorant, cockatiel, parrot, mongoose, common peafowl, crocodile, common otter, rhesus monkey, bonnet monkey and common langur. The Children's Park also exhibits a fossilised tree specimen which is estimated to be about 20 million years old and a statue of a Tyrannosaurus at the entrance. The Children's Park and the Snake Park have separate entrances and independent entry fees. Drinking water, vendors and catering are available. The entrance lies on the busy Sardar Patel Road next to the Adyar Cancer Institute. In December 2019, an augmented reality (AR) show with a capacity of 20 persons was opened to public.
Visitor information.
There is a new interpretation center about the biodiversity of the park. Entry into this protected reserve is restricted, and visitors can go into the core area only when escorted by a forest ranger from the Forests Department. The rear southeast edge of the park adjoins the campus of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Along its northern fringes on the Sardar Patel road are the Cancer Institute, CLRI campus, the Anna University, the Raj Bhavan and spaces allotted for the Gandhi Mandapam, Kamaraj Memorial and Rajaji Memorial.
The visiting timings at the Snake Park is from 9.00 am to 5.30 pm Children's Park is from 9.00 am to 6.00 pm and is open on all days except Tuesday which is declared as a holiday.
The nearest railway station is the Kasturba Nagar MRTS station which is less than a kilometer away. Guindy railway station on the Chennai Suburban Railway is 1 km away. Chennai Egmore railway station is 9 km away. Chennai Central railway station is 12 km away. Chennai International Airport is 8 km away.


Erwin Mill

Erwin Mill was a textile mill in Durham, North Carolina that operated between the years of 1893 and 1986. After seeing the success of other cotton mills in the Northeast and locally in Durham, entrepreneur Benjamin N. Duke incorporated the mill in 1892 and recruited William H. Erwin to manage the enterprise. The mill's success in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the result of Erwin's and his successors' exceptional management tactics, even when the factory hit obstacles such as the Great Depression and the unionization of its workers. The mill grew quickly in the late 19th century and early 20th century, became one of North Carolina's largest cotton mills. It originally produced muslin pouches for tobacco, but the mill would later expand its production to other fabrics, becoming one of the largest producers of denim in the world during the early 1900s. Workers at the mill enjoyed some of the best working conditions and highest wages in textile factories throughout the southern United States. Mill employees would later sign union-friendly labor agreements that were radical to the southern textile industry in the early to mid 20th century. The establishment of homes, businesses and recreation areas in the mill village was a significant factor in the development of the West Durham, especially the Ninth Street business district and the Old West Durham Neighborhood. Erwin Mill No. 1 is on the National Register of Historic Places and the mill village of West Durham is a National Historic District. An apartment complex, office building and shopping center of the same name that are built on the original site also commemorate the factory.
Background.
The idea of the Erwin Mill was rooted in the successful textile industry in New England and the Northeast. In the early 1800s, industrialists such as Samuel Slater brought the ideas behind cotton-spinning machines to the United States from England, which allowed the production of textiles on a mass scale. Even though northern cities such as Lowell, Massachusetts were home to the first large textile mills in the 1830s, industrialization and large textile mills reached Southern cities after the Civil War.
In the post-war South, subsistence agriculture and the plantation system yielded to more commercialized agriculture, which required less manpower, freeing labor to work in the mills. Many subsistence and yeoman farming families who faced hard times flocked to urban centers in search of work. The construction of complex railroad networks happened simultaneously to the growth of southern cities, making them prime candidates to become centers of industrialization. The growth of cities and infrastructure in the South allowed entrepreneurs open large factories, which took advantage of cheap labor that was rarely under the influence of a union. Many opened textile factories to manufacture the cotton crop that the Southern states had produced for years. By the turn of the century, much of the textile industry had shifted from the Northeastern United States to the South. In 1900, there were 177 mills in North Carolina alone. The industry reached Durham in the 1880s, when Durham businessman Julian Carr opened the Durham Cotton Manufacturing Company to manufacture cloth bags for tobacco. The mill's early success confirmed that a textile mill located in Durham or the surrounding area could be successful.
Beginnings.
The Duke family, which had been successful in starting the American Tobacco Company, looked to diversify their interests beyond the tobacco industry and raised $125,000 of start-up funds to build the factory. Benjamin Duke wanted to build the mill in North Carolina, offering that the central part of the state was "the most healthful locality in the South." Duke elected to construct the mills in West Durham, North Carolina, at the modern intersection of Main and Ninth Streets. Duke was traveling when his lawyers inquired about a name for the mills, so without any way to immediately contact Duke, the lawyers declared the mills to be named after the manager Duke had appointed to be in charge of the plant, William H. Erwin. In 1892, construction began on Mill No.1.
Erwin Cotton Mills showcased its success when it made a profit soon after it opened, even during a recession in 1893. In fact, the mill was so successful in its first few years of operation that production expanded to include denims. In 1896, the mill became one of the state's largest textile mills, employing 1,000 workers and doubling its production in just four years.
Growth.
Early years.
Erwin continued to diversify the mill's production and found new buyers across the world for the factory's finished products. The mill expanded its production to include sheets, muslins and denim, among other goods. Because the mill was producing more finished products, capital gains increased to more than seven million dollars of stock. With his operation and profits growing rapidly, Erwin decided to open additional mills, in Erwin, North Carolina and Cooleemee, North Carolina in 1902 and 1905.
Market expansion.
At the beginning of the 20th century the mill faced growing pains and was forced to change its selling strategies and the way it handled its relations with employees to succeed. Although the market price of textiles rose in the early 1900s, demand was not as strong as it had been during the mill's infant years, but Duke and Erwin worked tirelessly to find buyers overseas, especially in Asia. Erwin and Duke worked together with the British-American Tobacco Company to break into the Asian market, however Erwin reported that the mill still was having "strenuous times." It is possible that the denims the mill sent to China were the first to reach the country, which had practiced isolationism for much of the 1800s.
One of the reasons why the mill was so successful in its early years was because it employed poor workers in the post-war south who worked for extremely low wages in the recession years of the 1890s. Most men earned a maximum of $2.50 per day, while women and children earned even less. This helped the mill keep costs down and profits up, even while production increased. But, at the turn of the century, when the country emerged from the Panic of 1893, workers began to expect higher pay and fewer hours. Thus, Erwin and his management team decided to change conditions at the factory in order to create a better atmosphere for current and future employees. For example, Erwin Mills gave its employees a 40-hour workweek, which decreased the number of hours worked per week by almost 35 percent.
Favorable economic conditions during the 1910s allowed the mill to have its most successful decade since its inception. Stock rose to more than $150 a share and Erwin wrote to Duke in 1913 that he was aspiring to reach a profit of $2,000,000 that year. Duke was so pleased with Erwin's management that he authorized Erwin's salary to be increased by $5,000 the same year. Economists and entrepreneurs from all over the United States recognized the mill's renowned prosperity. Economist Frederick L. Baily said, "of all the mills in the south, the Erwin Cotton Mills Company has a place entirely by itself." Combined with the mills in Erwin and Coleemee, Erwin's Durham operation had become a major textile producer in North Carolina and the southern United States.
Physical expansion.
A second mill was constructed at the West Durham plant in 1925, which expanded and deepened Erwin Mills' impact and presence in Durham. Durham leaders wanted to prevent West Durham from incorporating into its own city, to leave open the possibility expanding city limits to include prosperous mill town. However, Erwin wanted West Durham to maintain its hegemony as its own village, separate from the city of Durham. When Durham leaders and Erwin came to an agreement that allowed West Durham to remain an independent mill village, Erwin began construction of a second mill. The 35,000 square foot mill cost $2,500,000 to build and had 35,000 spindles and 1,200 looms. The mill was named Mill No. 4 because two other mills were already operating outside of Durham County.
Great Depression and World War II.
Although the plant's growth was staggered in the mid-20th century, the management of Erwin Mills continued profit and expand, even through the Great Depression. The mill was largely unaffected compared to other businesses in the country because of an established system that had produced a consistent profit prior to the Great Depression. The mill did not do particularly well when the country faced hard times from 1929-1938, but thousands of workers kept their jobs and were paid at least 25 cents an hour. Erwin became ill and died in 1932 and was succeeded by KP Lewis. Lewis steered the mill through the Depression and the looming threat of unionization, without damaging the mill's profitability. Some reports indicate that 1938 was the final year that the mills had an annual loss until 1975. Lewis oversaw the acquisition of other mills in the south that were brought under the Erwin name, including mills in Stonewall, Mississippi and Wake County, North Carolina. World War II allowed the mill to fully emerge from the Depression, as it produced textiles in support of the war overseas and in return received government money for its products. However, the mill was losing control over the surrounding village. In the 1930s, it was incorporated into the city of Durham and in the early 1940s, Erwin Mills began selling the houses it had built north of the factory. This hinted at the mill's decline as other employers in the city grew, such as Watts Hospital and Duke University.
Effects on the development of West Durham.
The mill did not only serve as a workplace for its employees, it also led the development of the surrounding land, which was used to house and entertain employees and their families. When textile mills opened in the South in the late 1800s and early 1900s, mill towns sprouted up around the growing textile mills. They were tight-knit communities made up of textile workers, their families and sometimes management. Mill village residents usually did not leave the area around the factory, because textile companies provided food, goods and other necessities. The village at Erwin Mill was no different. The company built houses alongside the mill in the early 1890s and by the end of the 19th century hundreds of workers lived in single-family homes around the mill.
Construction of the Mill Village.
Historian William Kenneth Boyd attributes the rise of West Durham to the mill, as the village began to grow within the first few years of operation when there were 375 employees in late mid-1890s. This number grew proportionately when the number of employees at the plant rose in the 1900s. Erwin Mills constructed houses for its employees, which at one point included women and children. Housing needs continued to grow in the 20th century and additional houses were built in the area south of the mill that is now the Central Campus of Duke University. E.K Powe, a manager of the mill, even purchased houses directly from Duke located along Yearby Avenue in the 1920s. Today, the neighborhoods to the west and north of the former mill are mainly residential, harboring the former homes of mill workers.
Company control of the mill.
The mill village also provided entertainment, education and recreation to the workers and their families. The Erwin Auditorium was built in 1922 for performances and other events. A zoo and playground were built in the early 20th century to entertain the children of the mill workers after child labor was outlawed in 1913. A small library opened during the 1900s on the corner of Ninth and Main streets. Erwin also provided a limited education to mill employees and donated money a number of local charities. The company store, a staple of Southern cotton mills, provided residents with food, medicine and other basic goods. When mill workers died, most were buried in the nearby Cedar Hill Cemetery.
Erwin's rule over the mill town earned him the name "Pa Erwin," as he was very involved in the lives of his workers. But, in addition to keeping a close eye on his workers, he encouraged them to follow his Christian views, supporting local churches to presumably increase their popularity among the mill's workers and banning alcohol in the mill village. Erwin and the mill's first employees formed the West Durham Episcopal Mission in 1894, but as the mill village grew, Erwin saw the need for an official Episcopalian church. In 1908, Erwin funded the construction of a new church along Main Street that would become St. Joseph's Episcopal Church, which today is one of Durham's oldest Episcopalian congregations. He donated all proceeds that would have gone toward tobacco, alcohol and soft drinks to the church. Other area churches served workers who belonged to other denominations. Former worker Zeb Stone told Duke history student Richard C. Franck in 1975 that, "everything up here, just about, was run and controlled by the company."
The influx in population in West Durham led to the development of the Ninth Street business district, with stores such as McDonald's Drug store and lunch counter serving as a place of gathering for mill workers in the evenings. Eventually, the left side of the street opposite the mill was dotted with other shops and eateries. The addition of these services and amenities to the houses surrounding the mill transformed the village into a coherent community of workers and their families that was the foundation for what would become the Old West End neighborhood in Durham. When Erwin Mills began to sell houses to its workers and to the public, a new population of non-mill workers moved into the area, which diversified the Old West Durham neighborhood and allowed it to grow into its present state.
Working conditions.
Working conditions at the mill improved with time, because of experienced management and federal worker's rights legislation. Erwin and Duke originally elected to operate the mill in the South even though most textile mills in the late 1800s were located in the Northeast, because labor in the post-war South was relatively cheap. Employees were originally paid 30 cents an hour, but that number fell to 25 cents shortly after, prompting the mill's first strike. Child labor was also present, as boys as young as ten years old toiled at the mill until the practice was banned in 1913. In the early 20th century, O.C. Crabtree worked 66 hours a week at the age of 12. A 40-hour workweek was instated for all workers at the turn of the century and would remain a staple at the mill until its closure in the 1980s. Workers only worked limited hours at night and Federal legislation in 1913 limited night work to only two hours.
Additionally, Erwin instituted a profit sharing and bonus program for all mill workers, something that was rare at a textile mill, especially in the South. Employees at the mill approved of Erwin's supervision and many knew him on a personal level, as he visited all areas of the factory on a daily or weekly basis. He also funded and threw huge celebrations for the workers on holidays, particularly on July 4. The ability of mill's management to keep workers happy was a major factor in holding the community of West Durham together because it ensured that workers had long careers at the mill, with their families residing in the mill town for many years.
Unionization.
New Deal legislation during the Great Depression not only improved worker's rights even further, but also gave mill workers the right to organize. The legislation set forth a 25-cent minimum wage and put the 40-hour workweek into law. While this federal legislation "was something new for the textile industry," it had been a company policy for years. Even though conditions and pay at the factory were fairly better than other factories, the Great Depression inspired workers to fight for better wages and conditions. Erwin Mills' workers followed suit of other industries, which had organized during the past 15 years. But President KP Lewis, who had replaced Erwin in 1932, furiously refused to recognize the union. He was worried about the effects it would have on profits and shareholders. Tensions began to boil between management and employees. Erwin Mills workers participated in a large strike that took place throughout the south in September 1934, joining more than 5000 other Durham area factory workers to protest in the center of town. This strike was the first of a series of protests and walkouts that would at times paralyze the plant and pit management against thousands of workers.
The union movement grows.
Eventually Lewis and the other management team members became open to the idea of a union at the mill, which was aided by the creation National Labor Relations Board and the passing of the Wagner Act. The Wagner Act prevented management at workplaces around the United States interfering with unions. The Textile Workers Organizing Committee was the most prominent union at the West Durham mills and had a presence at the other mill locations in North Carolina. This was the first union at mill in its more than 40 years of existence. The organization of workers led to friction between workers and management in the early 1940s.
A new labor agreement was signed just prior to World War II on August 22, 1941 that officially recognized the union and stabilized wages for employees. But, the agreement expired in 1943 and the two sides were unable to come to an agreement in 1945 after the union workers released a set of demands that "no [other] southern cotton mill grant[ed]" at the time. Management originally refused to agree to the demands, which included paid holidays, a lunch break and having a person independent of the mill devise the labor agreement. It claimed that the mill could not maintain its profitability if it met the demands of workers and cited the fair treatment it had given them in the past, denying that they violated labor laws.
Former Duke University economics professor Frank DeVyver joined management in 1943 specifically to deal with labor disputes and worked out a compromise that satisfied the workers, giving them benefits such as vacation time, lunch breaks and an hourly wage of 65 cents. This was a radical and new type of labor agreement, as few other southern textile mills granted these rights to their workers, especially a 40-minute lunch break. Conditions at the mill had come a long way from the handful of small children who were toiling in the mill 40 years prior.
Later years.
The dynasty Erwin established in 1893 began to crumble in 1953 when Abney Mills acquired the Erwin Mill No. 1 and Erwin Mill No. 2 from the Duke family. Production and life at the mill remained the same as the city of Durham and Duke University sprouted up around aging factory. Employees continued to emerge victorious in the labor battle, signing new labor agreements in both 1956 and 1957, which prolonged the generous rights granted to workers in the prior decade. In 1962, the mill changed hands once again after Burlington Industries of Greensboro, North Carolina bought the mill and cut production in half. Working conditions, which had historically been above average, deteriorated during this period and were highlighted in a Duke Chronicle article that went as far as comparing the mill to a "concentration camp." Burlington Industries had done little to spur production at the mill, and there was little reason to, as modern factories in Asia and Central America were cheaper to operate and therefore stole business than traditional textile mills. Burlington did, however, spend millions of dollars to make improvements to both of the mills. The final year of textile production at the original Erwin Mill was in 1986, after 103 years of operation.


Jess Lockwood (bull rider)

Jess Lockwood (born September 28, 1997) is an American professional rodeo cowboy who specializes in bull riding, and competes in the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) tour. He joined the PBR in 2015 and was named Rookie of the Year in 2016. On November 5, 2017, he became the youngest PBR World Champion. He won his second PBR world championship on November 10, 2019. He also became the youngest bull rider to win two world championships.
Early life.
Jess Lockwood was born on September 28, 1997, in Volborg, Montana, to Ed and Angie Lockwood (née Schillinger). His father was a former Big Sky region champion bull rider and a professional saddle bronc rider. His mother was a long-time barrel racer. Lockwood was raised on his family's 12,000 acre ranch where they run about 400 head of cattle. As a small child, he would crawl on his father’s back and be bucked around their living room for eight seconds. He would then ask his mother “How many was I?”. His father would then interview him using the TV remote as a microphone. Lockwood said his father taught him to ride first on sheep and calves, then steers and bulls. Lockwood started riding bulls when he was in the 8th grade. He was the Northern Rodeo Association year-end champion in 2014 and 2015, earning $60,000 in his junior year of high school. He completed his senior year of high school on-line in order to pursue bull riding full time.
Career.
Lockwood joined the PBR on his 18th birthday, September 28, 2015.
Season 2017.
He was named the PBR 2016 Rookie of the Year. Early in the 2017 season, he missed five events due to a groin injury when he was stepped on by 2015 PBR world champion bull Long John. On September 9, 2017, while attempting to ride Sweet Pro's Bruiser, Lockwood was knocked unconscious. On September 23, 2017, he was stepped on by Blue Magic after being thrown. Lockwood suffered a punctured lung, four broken ribs, and a lacerated kidney. After missing several events due to these injuries, Lockwood still finished 2017 a winner. In Las Vegas, Nevada, at the T-Mobile Arena, on November 5, 2017, he became the youngest bull rider in history to win the PBR World Champion title and was awarded the $1 million prize that goes with it.
Season 2018.
In the 2018 season, Lockwood's bid to win back-to-back World Champion titles was cut short when a groin injury left him unable to compete in the final six regular-season premier series events. On September 7, 2018, Lockwood limped from the arena after riding Power Puff for 70 points. He declined the re-ride and was unable to compete in the remainder of the event due to the groin injury. Lockwood did not compete again until the PBR World Finals on November 7, 2018.
Season 2019.
On February 9, 2019, while attempting to ride Wild Goose, Lockwood was struck in the shoulder by one of Wild Goose's horns. This resulted in a broken collar bone that took Lockwood out of competition for nine Unleash the Beast events. At the time of the injury, he was ranked number one in the world with a lead of 967.5 points. On October 4, 2019, at the Minneapolis Invitational, Lockwood set a new PBR record for the most 15/15 Bucking Battle wins in a single season. He rode Bad Beagle for a score of 91.5 for his fourth 15/15 Bucking Battle win of the season.
On October 13, 2019, in Greensboro, North Carolina, he selected Heartbreak Kid for the championship round of the Wrangler Long Live Cowboys Classic. Heartbreak Kid was on the second longest buck-off streak in PBR history. He had 38 constitutive buck-offs at PBR premier series events. Lockwood broke the buck off streak when he made eight seconds scoring a new career high 93.75 points. When Lockwood released the rope at the end of the ride, he crashed into the arena floor head first. There was no celebration by Lockwood as he immediately exited the area in pain after the potential neck breaking landing. He was diagnosed with a cervical sprain. The following weekend, Lockwood rode Heartbreak Kid again at the Cooper Tires Take the Money and Ride in Nampa, Idaho, for a new career-high 94 points. On November 8, 2019, during a ceremony at the PBR World Finals, Lockwood received the Mason Lowe Award for his 94 point ride on Heartbreak Kid. Two days later, he won the PBR World Finals event average and his second world championship.
Season 2020.
On February 1, 2020, Lockwood became the fastest PBR rider to cross the $4 million dollar mark in earnings. Lockwood earned the $4 million dollars in his first 39 months of competing in the PBR.
On March 1, 2020, during the championship round of the Caterpillar Classic in Kansas City, Missouri, Lockwood hung his spur in the bull rope while getting off I'm Legit Too after completing a 91.5-point ride aboard the bull. Lockwood's left hamstring was torn from his hip bone requiring surgery and a six-month recovery. At the time of his injury he led the PBR with 9 round wins and had five 90 point rides in the 2020 season. Lockwood was World Number 2 in the standings before the injury.
Lockwood’s annual rankings in his career to date are as follows:
Personal life.
After dating for more than a year, Lockwood announced his engagement to World Barrel Racing Champion Hailey Kinsel in March 2019. He lives on a two-hundred-acre ranch he purchased in 2019, which is near where he grew up. Lockwood's younger brother, Jake, is also a professional bull rider on the PBR tour.
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association National Finals Rodeo Average Champion barrel racer Lisa Lockhart is Lockwood's aunt. On October 25, 2019, Jess Lockwood and Hailey Kinsel were married at Kinsel's ranch in Cotulla, Texas. The Lockwoods split their time between their ranches in Stephenville, Texas, for the winter and Montana for the summer.


Australian Friesian Sahiwal

The Australian Friesian Sahiwal, is an Australian breed of dairy cattle whose development commenced in the 1960s by the Queensland Government. It is a combination of the Sahiwal, a dairy breed of "Bos indicus" from Pakistan and Holstein ("Bos taurus") breeds, designed for the tropical regions of Australia. Cows produce approximately 3,000 litres of milk per lactation under tropical pasture conditions with a high resistance to heat, humidity, ticks and other parasites.
The AFS breed has now been successfully exported to many tropical countries of South East Asia, Central and South America and the Indian sub-continent.
The Australian Friesian Sahiwal (AFS) cows are crossbreeds developed by Queensland as a suitable breed that will able to thrive in tropical climates. To achieve this successful crossbreeding, multiple programmes were established in which various genotypes and crossbred cattle were involved. Ultimately, this Holstein-Friesian and Sahiwal breed was a success in mitigating the various problems other cattle suffered in varying environments. With the success of this crossbreeding, a study in Bangladesh concluded that the AFS were a superior breed in terms of its milk production that was necessary for various tropical countries and was soon exported to countries which its economies depended on its livestock like Bangladesh. Hence, due to its ability to produce desirable milk outcome and heat and tick resistance, the AFS was a successful crossbreed.
Similar type in Brazil.
In Brazil, a similar combination of Holstein and Gir cattle is called "Girolanda". For many decades, Girolanda has been widely used in Brazil, as a source of milk, with success.
Genotypes and Crossbreeding.
Development.
A study by Alexander et al. highlighted that in 1960s the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIRO) and Queensland Department of Primary Industries (QDPI) began the development of tick-resistant and heat-tolerant breeds and began crossbreeding the AFS, which consists of 50% Holstein-Friesian and 50% Sahiwal. There were various studies conducted on the different genotypes and the AFS breed was reported to be the most suitable genotype in terms of its milk production, lactation and yields. The Australasian-Friesian-Sahiwal and Pabna and Holstein and Pabna genotypes were identified to be the best in terms of its lactation yields and extended lactation length. The Nelder model was utilized to determine the milk yield of the various genotypes and the AFS crossbreed mixes were the superior genotype that accurately worked in all of the models. Alexander and Tierney's (1990) study established the AFS's genes to be superior as it was able to overcome problems experienced by different cattle mainly by culling heifers that have failed to let down milk under machine milking conditions when the calf is not present and with the development of the AFS, this problem has been controlled. Furthermore, a study conducted in Bangladesh comparing the various genotypes found that “AFS had the shortest gestation period and highest service per conception performance”, which was deemed ideal for the country to meet their livestock needs and grow in its climatic conditions. In India, research by Gurnani et al. 1986 & Kumar et al. (2018) concluded that the Sahiwal cattle was effective for developing crossbred strains of dairy cattle and is utilized to develop synthetic strains of breeds, the AFS being one of them.
Programmes.
To ensure the continuation of the development of AFS, various programmes were developed. However only a handful of programmes that were examined had proven to successfully develop the AFS crossbreed without compromising its genetic materials. For example, during the development of the AFS breeds, only 10% of the cows produced desirable levels of milk and, using these cows, the Multiple Ovulation and Embryo Transfer (MOET) programme was established to create a superior herd of cows. This programme aimed to significantly increase the development and production of the AFS breed through heifers, embryos and semen for exportation purposes to tropical countries due to the AFS's genetic excellency. The MOET programme was successful in developing superior heifers and cattle to be utilized for the programme and identify sires for future mating. The utilization of Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) was another programme developed to expand the number of calves produced yearly which was said to enhance the genetic gain of the breed. Another method of breeding the AFS was through proving semen to export and extract genetic materials. The semen is utilized to further improve the genetic modification of the AFS breed and mate it with the first crossbred cattle and also to acclimatise the cattle to tropical conditions through the progeny process of purebred Holstein-Friesians. Due to the success of bull proving and MOET programme in modifying the AFS's genetics, it resulted in an increased demand for the semen of the proven AFS. The freezing of embryos was another known successful programme that was underway at that point in time to ensure the suitability for exportation and maintain cost efficiency for the future. The embryo transfer programme allowed the supplying of genetic materials of purebred AFS cows to tropical countries and was a safe, cost-effective method of transportation that did not compromise the genetic materials. All the programmes listed was tested in Australia as it was able to support the logistics requirements needed. Through the programmes, the AFS crossbreed was successfully produced and possessed the genetic qualities of both the Sahiwal and Holstein-Friesian cattle.
Tropical Conditions.
Heat-resistant.
One of the few factors that resulted in the AFS breed to be considered genetically ideal was its ability to thrive in tropical conditions, which was necessary for countries with varying climatic conditions. This is because the living conditions of the AFS was paramount as the level of humidity influences its body temperature, resulting in heat dissipation and ultimately affecting milk production. Maust et al. deduced that “humidity, wind velocity, rainfall and day length” affected the milk fat percentage and resulted in poor production of milk fat. As such, this led to the development of the AFS breed to combat such environmental factors. At the beginning of the developmental stage, a 50-50 mix of Holstein-Friesian and Sahiwal genes was utilized solely to develop breeds to achieve the best outcome for milk production and tick resistance even when acaricide fails. However further studies later concluded that the combination of the Bos taurus and Bos indicus mix genes are able to thrive and acclimatize in tropical conditions.
Alexander et al. found that the AFS produced desirable milk outcomes under tropical climatic conditions. This reiterates the purpose of developing the AFS cows by the QDPI to thrive in tropical conditions, retaining the tropical acclimatization characteristics of the Bos Indicus together with the traits of the Bos taurus’ exceptional milk production. Although higher temperature and humid climate plays a crucial role in enabling milk outcome and the AFS's resistance to it, further studies have concluded that this crossbreed was able to flourish in other climatic conditions as well. For example, the Tabkwang Research and Breeding Centre found that milk production was unaffected in colder climates like rainy and winter season and was reported to be higher than normal. Studies by Cunningham and Syrstad 1987; Syrstad 1989; Madalena et al. 1990 support AFS as an ideal breed in comparison to pure breeds because this crossbreed has the ability to thrive in tropical conditions enabling better milk production. The Holstein-Friesian was known to be the best dairy cattle breed for temperate region and the Sahiwal was the best dairy cattle breed for tropical areas. As such, with crossbreeding and genetic mixture of both the Sahiwal and Holstein-Friesian, the AFS breed possesses qualities from both cattle to adapt to the tropical climates. Furthermore, a study conducted in Indonesia, highlighted the importance of varying climatic conditions and how it affects an animal's ability to acclimatize to changing conditions, especially in tropical countries. Hence, it is important that animals have optimum levels of heat tolerance, which is the ability to regulate its metabolism rate in harsh conditions and high environmental temperatures. In this research, the Holstein-Friesian cows were identified to exhibit a positive bodily reaction in terms of its ability to adjust to changing altitudes and tolerating heat levels. In 1981, Trail, J.C.M, Greogory, K.E. discovered that the Sahiwal cattle were often used in countries like Africa, Asia, Australia and South America due to its ability to thrive and adapt to non-optimal nutritional and climatic stressors.
Tick-resistant.
Besides its ability to thrive in varying climatic conditions, the AFS was deemed as a suitable breed for tropical countries as a result of its resistant levels against ticks as well. For example, the findings from a study by Ilatsia et al. 2012 & Khan and Mirza 2014 highlighted that the AFS crossbreeds was not only known for its adaptation to varying tropical conditions but for also having higher resistance against tropical diseases. Through the crossbreeding of both the Holstein-Friesian and Sahiwal cattle, it produced superior genetics that is able to adapt to temperate or tropical conditions and displayed stronger resistance to ticks and parasites. Even more so, the Sahiwal cattle is known for its qualities like optimum milk production, higher heat tolerance levels, disease resistance and resistance to parasites as well. The genetic materials of the Sahiwal and Holstein cattle were closely examined to identify which cattle had better resistance and the severity of tick infections. A study was conducted to compare the Sahiwal and Holstein cattle's resistance to ticks like Theileria annulata infection which is also known as tick-borne tropical Theileriosis and the study found that the Sahiwal calves had higher levels of resistance and were able to survive as compared to the Holstein calves which were severely infected. The Sahiwal cattle had higher resistance to the Theileria annulate due to its Punjab origins, where this form of ticks were common and therefore had become accustomed to various parasites, resulting in higher resistant levels as compared to the Holstein cattle.
Dairy Production.
As tropical conditions affect milk production, it is worth noting the correlation of milk production of the AFS and environmental conditions from various research. A study conducted in Thailand on the AFS cows reported that the cows remain unaffected despite humidity levels and produced desirable levels of milk under Thailand's tropical climatic conditions. However, in the summer when the Temperature-Humidity Index (THI) increased the milk production and reproduction decreased. In a comparative study of AFS cows from Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand, the research farm owned by the Division of Veterinary Services in Air Hitam, Malaysia reported that over 39% of the AFS cows produced more milk and its milk yield was superior to the local breeds involved in the study. In the beginning of the developmental phase of the AFS, Queensland reported that the AFS cows had lower levels of milk production as compared to the Holstein-Friesians, but despite this difference the AFS was still considered to the most ideal breed due to its overall performance. One of the main aims of the Follicle Stimulating Hormone programme was to produce genetically superior cows that were able to meet the milking production needs and hence the embryos of the top 25% of the breed with impressive milk production was utilized further in the development of the crossbreed.
Although numerous studies have concluded that the AFS has optimum milk production levels, there are also studies that suggest otherwise. For example, Edwards (1985) identified that the Sahiwal Friesian cows have displayed lactation failure in the beginning of its lactation period. In this study, a group of Sahiwal Friesian cows were tested to record its milk production, and, it exhibited low lactation performance and decreasing levels of milk production and continued to fail for 8 weeks straight, resulting in the milk production process to be ceased. Additionally, Peaker and Wilde (1996) found Sahiwal Friesian cattle to have short lactation periods that led to lactation failure and this was due to the unsuccessful milking process and sometimes milking was affected by factors like milk synthesis and secretion. In comparison, Veerkamp & Brotherstone's (1997) and Buckley et al.'s (2000) study deduced that cows with genetic superiority in terms of milk production have lower body condition scores during lactation and the Holstein-Friesian genetics contained lower body conditions that were ideal for optimum milk production. The genetic materials of the Holstein-Friesian was studied and the researchers concluded that with fine modifications to the genes, it displayed desirable results for milk production with improvements to its reproductive performance as well. Therefore this highlights the positive correlation between reproductive performance and milk production that was essential to the Holstein-Friesian genes. Although the Holstein-Friesian cows had the highest genetic material for milk production, it however left them susceptible to diseases like foot and mouth disease, foot rot etc.


Northern Counties Textile Trades Federation

The Northern Counties Textile Trades Federation was a trade union federation in northern England.
History.
The federation was founded in 1906. By 1907, it brought together unions representing 126,700 members. Despite its name, it only included unions representing workers in the cotton industry; the wool industry and textile finishing were instead covered by the National Association of Unions in the Textile Trade. Another similar organisation, the United Textile Factory Workers' Association, devoted itself to political work, and two of its members (the Amalgamated Association of Card and Blowing Room Operatives and the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners) never joined the federation.
By 1960, the federation's members were:


Conops

Conops is a genus of flies from the family Conopidae. The larvae of "Conops" are parasitic on bees, especially bumblebees. Adults feed on nectar.


Mahala Problem Cigarettes

Mahala Problem, officially "Problem oHG", was a cigarette company from Berlin, popular and successful before and after the First World War. The company was founded on March 25, 1889, by Szlama Rochmann in Berlin, and later bought in 1932 by Reemtsma.
History.
Company Creation.
The Jewish cigarette manufacturer Szlama Rochmann (17 June 1857–17 December 1925) founded in 1889 "Cigarettenmanufaktur Mahala-Problem" ("Cigarette manufacturer Mahala-Problem") at Alexanderstraße 13/22 (Alexanderhof) in Berlin. This was after his brother, Baruch Rochmann (1863–1926), had taken over the family cigarette manufacturing company "Namkori-Phänomen" from his father Israel Jacob Rochman (22 June 1837–31 July 1881) in 1881.
At the turn of the 20th Century, Szlama hired commercial artists such as Louis Oppenheim, Ernst Deutsch-Dryden, Lindenstaedt, Lucian Bernhard to create advertisements. The German commercial artist Hans Rudi Erdt created the famous Fez wearing Moslem as the brand image for the "Problem-Cigarettes".
In 1914, after the 25th anniversary of the company, Szlama acquired the grounds of 212-213 Greifswalder Straße in Berlin from Gustav Magnus (not to be confused with Heinrich Gustav Magnus), to turn it in the headquarters for manufacturing of their cigarette brands. Between 1914 and 1929, the Jewish architect Moritz Ernst Lesser and Ernst Ludwig Freud (Son of Sigmund Freud) were commissioned to build the factory for production and storage. The Rochmann family with four children were also living at the building.
After the death of Szlama in 1925, his two sons Heinrich Rochmann and Carl Rochmann took over the father's business, still headquartered on the Greifswalder Straße. The tombstones of Szlama, his parents and his brother are located at the Jewish graveyard of Berlin-Weißensee.
Downfall.
After a bad harvest of Turkish tobacco, increased taxes for the storage of tobacco, as well as the onset of the Great Depression, the family sold first the brand "Problem-Cigarettes" (1930), and then the entire company (1932) to the Hamburg based company Reemtsma. Szlama's wife (Hanna) and their sons moved to the west Berlin, while their daughter Erna lived with her husband in Central Berlin (Prager Platz). The production halls were then rented out by Reemtsma from 1935 to the Reichsarbeitsdienst and were converted into sewing halls.
With the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany, Heinrich Rochmann (son of Szlama) was successful in emigrating to England in 1934. Carl Rochmann and his wife Else were murdered in 1942 after being deported to Auschwitz during World War II. The family house was auctioned in 1943.


Daron Joffe

Daron Joffe (born 1976) is a U.S. agribusiness and nonprofit executive who is prominent in the organic farming and biodynamic agriculture movements. He is the founder and president of Farmer D and author of award winning book, Citizen Farmers - The Biodynamic Way to Grow Healthy Food, Build Thriving Communities and Give Back to the Earth.
Education and early career.
Joffe was born in South Africa and moved with his family to Atlanta, Georgia, when he was three years old. When he was a student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he took an accredited apprenticeship on a nearby organic farm. Joffe dropped out of school in 1995 and returned to Georgia, where took an apprenticeship at a biodynamic farm. In 1996, he returned to Wisconsin and bought a farm, where he combined organic and biodynamic agricultural practices. In 1998, he was honored by the American Biodynamic Association as the organization’s “rookie biodynamic farmer of the year.” Joffe would later recall that the farm was not profitable, and that he made more money selling organic pizza and falafel at a farmers’ market in Madison, Wisconsin.
In 2000, Joffe relocated to San Francisco, California, where he worked as a teacher with the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG). The program, which was based at the Log Cabin Ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains and was run by the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department, taught horticulture and farming to incarcerated teenagers.
Joffe, in an interview with the "San Francisco Chronicle", praised the SLUG concept of bringing urban youth to a farm setting. "Gardening is a powerful teaching tool because food is so elemental and they get that," he said. "Out here, these kids grow food that they contribute to their communities back home. That's a life-changing experience for many of them."
Nonprofit and corporate farming endeavors.
Joffe returned to Georgia in 2002. In January 2003, he received a $60,000 grant from the philanthropic Joshua Venture to establish Gan Chaim (Hebrew for "Garden of Life"), which sought to bring involve the state's Jewish community in organic and biodynamic solutions to a farm in Athens, Georgia. Joffe compared the concept of Gan Chaim to an Israeli kibbutz, with its sense of community support and self-reliance.
Later in 2003, Joffe created Farmer D Organics, an agribusiness consulting company. The company expanded into producing a line of organic compost that is sold in U.S. natural products retail stores.
Joffe expanded his public profile through his work as vice-president of Georgia Organics, a nonprofit organization that promotes the state's organically grown foods, and through weekly video features presented on the Mother Nature Network environmental Web site. He has also developed organic farms for the University of Georgia and for low-income communities within the state. In 2005, he began operations for a organic farm at Hampton Island, a private community in Riceboro, Georgia.


Owen King (Wisconsin politician)

Owen King (September 17, 1845 – October 31, 1932) was a lumber dealer from Helena, Wisconsin, who served two terms in the Wisconsin State Assembly representing part of Iowa County, being elected in 1874 as a Reform Party member, then in 1877 as a Greenbacker.
Background.
King was born September 17, 1845 in New London, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He received a common school education, as well as attending college for a while; and became a lumber dealer. King came to Wisconsin in 1850, and settled in Wyoming in Iowa County. He was elected town clerk in 1871.
Legislative office.
In 1874, he received 1,387 votes as the candidate of the "Reform" or "People's Reform" Party (a coalition of Democrats, reform and Liberal Republicans, and Grangers which had secured the election of William Robert Taylor as Governor in 1873) against 1,002 for Republican Halgrim Halgrimson. Incumbent William E. Rowe, who had served as a "Free Trader", was not a candidate for re-election in Iowa County's first Assembly district, which included the Towns of Arena, Clyde, Dodgeville, Highland, Pulaski, Ridgeway and Wyoming.
He was not a candidate for re-election in 1875, and was succeeded by fellow Reformer Ansley Gray. In 1877, he ran again from the first district as an "Independent Greenback", winning with 954 votes to 702 for Republican Jesse P. Smelker and 576 for Democrat David McFarland (Democratic incumbent Robert Kinzie was not a candidate). He was assigned to the committee on insurance, banks and banking. He was not a candidate for re-election in 1878, and was succeeded by fellow Greenback George L. Frost.
Later years.
King died on October 31, 1932, at his home, in Spring Green, Wisconsin.