Landscaping and philosophy

Dr Abe V Rotor 

I observed a gardener arrange a piece of landscape at UST.  I was on my way to meet my class in the graduate school, but this time this kind gardener became my mentor. 

A layer of stones around the base of a tree and at the blind corner of a building makes a neat and clean appearance.   It transformed a taken-for-granted area into something Japanese and American and Filipino combined.  

It made me wonder if there is a purist version of a landscape, say strictly Italian, or French, or Chinese. None as I know, except that certain emphasis expresses a nationality.  For example, the Japanese garden is basically made of rocks and stone and sand.  An American garden is perhaps the closest to nature - it runs its course like a flowing stream or a climbing liana. What amazes me is the fine taste of artisans, who we think are not sensitive to "fine arts."  On the contrary they do - some better than us.

So the fellow - Jun, sir he said when I asked his name - demonstrated the steps.  He laid down a mat of used plastic with holes he added with a pick.  So that water with not accumulate, he explained, and stones and soil are separated. The plastic will asphyxiate weeds that grow from below. I supplied the term from his vernacular term. 

To break the monotony of the stones he planted peanut grass on the periphery, and covered the drainage cover with stones - camouflage was what he meant.  And how about emphasis? Just a boulder he couldn't take away from view. It's there and it's part of it.  Jun is a philosopher, too. 

I received more than knowledge itself.  I learned a lesson in life from a simple man who simply love his work, and willing to share it. Which led me to ask, What really is a professor?

The Eyes of Nature

"Many eyes are looking at me

here with Nature,

by day and night 

beneath and atop a tree." - avr

Painting and Poem by Dr Abe V Rotor

Also visit my other Blogs:

[avrotor.blogspot.com]

[Living with Nature School on Blog]

 Eyes in the Forest, acrylic painting on canvas (60" x 44"), by AVR, May 2012

Details: Young adventurers in full gear prepare to penetrate the forest; emergent tree rises to a hundred feet surpassing the canopy layer. A nest is perched on the top, with a mother hawk attending to her young. A pair of deer, a coiled boa, and many more hidden and camouflaged. Trees are real giants of the living world. The Dipterocarp is tallest tree in the Tropical Rain Forest. 

The Eyes of Nature

Many eyes are looking at me here with Nature;

By day and night, beneath and atop a tree.

They're scary, they're mean, they're sleepy, 

And how do I look to them seeing me?

Wink and they wink, close and they do, too.

Quick the flashlight, and they disappear;

Can eyes exist alone, like stars in the sky?

I wonder if these eyes are like stars to cheer.  

Yes, the fireflies have lamps that flicker,

The moth and butterfly have wing spots

Like monstrous eyes to stave off predator,

And cave dwellers glow in rows and knots. 

The fish in the stream is silver in the moonlight,

As bubbles rise to the surface and sparkle,

The owl rarely blinks, no creature dare around,

Its infrared vision indeed a marvel.

Raindrops falling make a thousand eyes
Life they bring to the rainbow, borrowing
its colors glow, and sparkle as they drop,
reborn with the light of the river flowing. 

Mushrooms are phosphorescent, they glow,

while others absorb light for future use; 

Ah, boast the snake, I can freeze you to fall,

An eagle swoops, there's no excuse.

Petals attract a pollinator in the night

Crickets shine when won by a song,

Seeds pop out to meet the rising sun,

And the sun shines happily all along. 

Eyes, eyes, eyes, - for us to see the world, 

And all eyes the world is bound;

In our sleep, in the deep forest and ocean,

Eyes make the world go round. ~

"Dirty ice cream" is the tastiest ice cream in the world.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Mang Tomas' ice cream is patronized by the UST community.     

Dirty ice cream - but why the clamor, the demand?
Capitalism's war on tradition, triumph of the brand.  

Maligned in misnomer, yet lives in one's childhood;
what's in a name for the tastiest ice cream in the world?

Home made it started, then rode on a fancy push cart,
Indigenous and personalized, brand of Filipino art. 

It is a link of tradition and modern, the old and young;
though endangered for now, it has a promise beyond?   

Foreign ingredients and technology, why not our own?
from farm to home, all native from ice cream to cone.

Dirty ice cream – to redeem its name by no one but us,
take it from the old, innovation, and Mang Tomas. ~

Biological fertilizer is friendly to farmers and environment

Dr Abe V Rotor

 Dr Precila C Delima (second from right) poses with members of her panel of examiners after defending successfully her dissertation, The effects of seed treatment, nitrogen fertilization and herbicide application on the efficacy of Bio-N on corn growth and productivity,  earning her  a doctorate degree in biological science from the University of Santo Tomas. In the photo are (left to right): Dr Thomas Edison dela Cruz, Dr Gina Rio Dedeles, Dr Cristina Ramos, Dr Romualdo del Rosario, Dr Grecebio Jonathan Alejandro (chairman), Dr Delima and Dr Abercio Rotor (adviser).

Dr Delima pays courtesy to Dean Lilian Sison of the Graduate School.  

Findings:

Biological Nitrogen (Bio-N bacteria) and mycorrhizal innoculum in combination with half or three-fourth of the recommended inorganic fertilizer is sufficient to supply the nutrient requirements of corn, hence can offer considerable benefits in terms of growth and yield.  Bio-N and AMF are potential substitute to fertilizers and biocides.

However Bio-N or Mykovam as single inoculant is insufficient for crop growth.

High amount of N has a negative impact on the AMF resulting to low yield.

Bio-N, and combination with inorganic fertilizers with biofertilizers without herbicide were found to be profitable and pitential substitutes to the commercial inorganic fertilizers.   

Recommendations:

Promote the utilization of environmentally sound inoculant fertilizers among farmers to reduce their fertilizer input and consequently help mitigate global warming.

Biofertilizers should be used in combination with optimun amount of inorganic fertilizers (50% to 75%) to maintain sustainability in crop growth and productivity.

Further study is recommended to establish guidelines in applying the findings of this research, namely: 

• location-specific (within and outside Cagayan Valley)
• season-specific based on the sub-climate of the area.  
• variety-specific (white, other corn varieties, and different cultivars of yellow corn)
• residual effect of the two biofertlizers
• application of low input systems such as organic farming on biofertlizers

Background

1. Corn (Zea mays), one of the three most important cereals in the world, beats its counterparts - rice in the tropical region and wheat in the temperate region -  for the fact that it can grow on a wide range of latitude and altitude, practically growing along side either or both crops -  or alone owing to its high adaptability to soil and climatic conditions, resistance to force majeure including drought, pests and diseases.   

Talahib (Saccharum spontaneum), source of free living nitrogen-fixing bacteria (Azospirillum complex)

2. Corn is versatile in its usage: as forage, silage and roughage for livestock at any stage of the plant, human food in a hundred-and-one recipes from popcorn to corn-on-cob, tacos to corn chips, and as animal feeds which constitute 80 percent of most feed formulation for poultry, hogs and livestock; and with the fuel crisis on the rise, corn is  the main source of biofuel - ethanol and oil - as substitute to conventional fossil fuel. 

3. Corn cultivation ranges from small tenanted farms to corporate farms, with the latter employing the latest in technology and management, such as on large scale farming in southern United States, South America, and now Africa, expanding the world's corn belt, with increasing population and affluence; yet much of the small farms mainly in Asia and island countries remain marginal and subsistent.

4. Corn, the heavy feeder of Nitrogen it makes into protein and oil and countless other products, leaves the soil spent and unproductive through repeated cropping, thereby requiring fallowing (a time for the land to rest), more so replenishment through fertilization and rotation planting with legumes known for their N-fixing capacity.

5. Corn, the high yielder that for every kilo of Nitrogen applied produces ten to twenty times yield increase no other cereal could match, on the other hand induces heavy chemical fertilization on the part of the farmer to force yield levels to reach 7 to 10 tons per hectare (up to 15 tons); resulting in the long run acidity buildup and depletion of soil nutrients both major and minor elements.   

6. Corn in the Philippines, second most important to rice, is planted to some 2.5 million hectares generally once a year, under poor agronomy and lack of policy direction, resulting in very low average yield (less than 1 MT/ha, lower that the world's average); yet the hybrid varieties can produce three to four times higher but occupies only 10 percent of cornfield. Because of low yield - and high cost -  the country would rather import corn for its animal feeds requirement. 

7. Corn, an upland crop is dependent on residual soil moisture after rice crop and occasional precipitation, otherwise flush irrigation is required to complete its productive cycle  in about 90 days, including postharvest operations - detasselling, harvesting,  shelling, drying and storage. 

8. Corn usually gets its supply of Nitrogen and other elements from chemical fertilizers mainly Urea and complete fertilizer (12-12-12 or 10-10-10) which are  very costly and not readily available, not to mention the harmful effect of chemicals to the soil and environment. 

9. Corn - if it can be cultivated organically with the use of biological Nitrogen fertilizers (Bio-N) will tremendously reduce if not substitute chemical fertilizers, and help stabilize pH, improve tilth,  and cut down pollution from the by-products of chemicals, and at the very source of manufacture.  

10. Corn, being a member of the grass family (Graminae, now Poaceae) may benefit from microorganisms in the soil that aid in the conversion of N2 into NO3 called nitrification, like in the case of talahib (Saccharum spontaneum) which harbors a nitrogen fixing bacterium - a factor that explains its adaptability in almost desert condition.  

11. Corn and the major food crops mostly non-leguminous to become as naturally Nitrogen-fixing, and therefor become self-sufficient has been the Utopia of science. Thus the continued search for nitrogen-fixing microorganisms, some  like Mycorrhiza fungus in the roots of forest trees, Rhizobium in legumes, Nostoc and Anabaena (BGA) in lowland rice, among many other beneficial organisms which  have been isolated, cultured and  developed as inoculants for field use. d.   

12. Corn research is overwhelming in kind and number, corn being one of the most researched and experimented crops, resulting in the production of hybrid varieties, and  the BtCorn or Bacillus thuringienis-Corn, produced by splicing a gene part of the bacterium into the corn's DNA,  the first commercial Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) now  planted extensively in the US and other parts of the world including the Philippines. 

13. Corn production currently faces serious problems: first, economic viability and    sustainable productivity; second, dynamic adaptability to changing climatic conditions; and thirdly, shifting use from staple to animal feed, and now, a growing shift from food to biofuel and other industrial uses. Calorie value is lost tremendously when converted from grain to meat (conversion ratio:  1/5 in poultry, 1/8  in pork, 1/16 in beef); whereas conversion into biofuel results in net  loss, instead of gain in energy. 

14. Corn by-products range from thatched roofing to particle board, its flower silk is medically approved as diuretic tea, now marketed in sachets and dispensers,  its cob ground into powder used in the formulation of face and baby powder, and being organic is safer to health and environment. Corn meal after extracting oil is supplies many culinary preparation, and the sludge sediment in alcogas fermentation is excellent organic matter and soil conditioner  

15. Corn fertilization with biological Nitrogen (vesicular-arbuscular-mycorrhiza  or VAMF, a fungus; and BIO-N composed of bacteria complex - Azospirillum spp)  promises high hopes to reduce dependence on chemical fertilizer while maintaining high yield on long term advantage, and that it could be a key to combining agriculture and ecology as partners, instead of strange bedfellows.   

It's Amihan Season: A critique on the poems of Sister Macarius Lacuesta, SPC

“Fly on my little kite

Do not let fear daunt you,

For the hand that holds the strings

Knows best and watches over you.”

Dr Abe V Rotor

Detail of mural by AVRotor

If imagery is more vivid than vision, take it from Sr. Macarius – religious, scholar and poetess.

“Fly on my little kite
Ride on the wings of the wind…
Over plains and dales,
Reach on to the heights,
Hear the whispers of the treetops,
And the secrets of the clouds.”

- Fly on My Little Kite

She samples us with the timelessness, and the vastness of imagery that transcends to all ages – the young and the old, the past and present – and beyond. It unleashes the searching mind to freedom, liberating the soul with the confidence of a hand that holds the string of that kite.

For who would not like to fly on that kite in order to see the world, or at least to be taller from where he stands, or to turn the hands of time and be a child again even only for a while? That child in all of us, it must live forever. It lives in a dragonfly many years ago we captured for fun.

“Ah, you bring me back to my yesteryears
When I would run to catch you…
The sound your wings did make was music to me…
And then the childish whim satisfied, I set you free.”

- You Naughty Dragonfly

Adventure, simple as it may, carries us to the open field, and its pleasant memories make us feel reborn. Sister Macarius’ unique imagery comes at the heels of virtual reality as one reflects on her poems. Yet, on the other side of the poetess’ nature, she is real, she is here and now, “through open fields she walked… tired and weary, she slumped on the stump of an acacia tree.” From here she journeyed to the deep recesses of the roots of the sturdy tree. How forceful, how keen are her thoughts, true to being a devout religious.

“For their roots journey to the deep earth 
Was a determined search for water,
Unmindful of the encounter with darkness,
Where cold and heat would not reach.”

- Journey to the Deep.

Faith is as deep as the roots of a sturdy tree. Such analogy refines the moral of the poem. It is a parable in itself. The poetess paused. In prayer she said in the last part of the poem, poignant yet firm and believing in the fullness of thrust and confidence of a Supreme Being.

“Lord, sink my roots into the depths of unwavering faith in You;
Help me believe that in my encounter
With darkness, hope may be borne
And my life will manifest all
The goodness, the beauty that is You.”
- Journey to the Deep

While poems do not drive a lesson like hitting a nail on the head, so to speak, they provide a mellowing effect, especially to us adults, to accept lessons in life. Such is the commonality of the poems of Sister Macarius, Sister Mamerta Rocero and Sister Paat, who are respected literary figures of the local SPC congregation. Their poems have a deep message to the reader in the ways of respecting and loving God. They often begin with reverence for life.

“All you peoples, clap your hands and sing,
The God of Creation has done wonderful deeds
And the earth is full of His handiworks
All for you and me.”

We picture God as detached, way above the level of man. Great writers in the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Dumas and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow can attest to that. More so with Michaelangelo as shown in his mural, Creation. And yet we believe that man is the image of God. The anthropocentric view is that man was created in the likeness of God, and that he is the custodian of His creation. How lucky is man indeed to be the center of God’s attention! In Sr. Macarius Child of the Kingdom, she starts with a question, “Are you a child of the Kingdom? Then she proceeded to answer the question herself.

“Even with a sense of wonder
Holding a cup full of surprises,
Reading out to share with others
The joy of His abiding presence
Nurturing within your being 
The hope of eternal life.”

We may not know the places and boundaries of eternity and kingdom. They are too far out there for us to grasp and believe, much more to understand. Yet we have learned to accept them, grew up with them, abstract as they are, in the name of faith and doctrine. They are there laid upon the path we all travel. At its end lies our salvation, which is as abstract as eternity and kingdom.

Our modern world has become skeptical about abstract things. It is moving away from rituals of faith to rituals of entertainment. Action demands reason. Imagination cannot be left unquestioning. Even science remote from technology is theory. Religions too, continue to evolve, breaking away from the moorings of tradition and dogma. Mystery and faith are no longer the perfect partners as they did for centuries. And the world has become more vigilant against conquerors using religion for their greed, sharing the bounties of conquest with it. And religion that keeps the colonial master in power, sitting beside the throne.

Just like Christianity replaced the long revered Aztec sun god, and the gods and goddesses of Mt. Olympus that survived Roman rule but vanishing with its fall, we ask ourselves today, “Will Vatican finally lose its global power and vast wealth? Will cultism create an exodus away from the church?” And now come the cybergods, riding on satellites and the internet and entering our living rooms at any time without knocking on our doors. And here is a hydra of corporate cultures, a kind of religion itself.

Sr. Macarius’ poems do not deal with issues about faith, eternity, salvation, kingdom, and the like, endorsing them to debate. She does not act like a doctor of the church even if she carries a doctorate degree in philosophy. Yet in her own gentle way she invites the reader to the fold, riding on that little kite, running in the open field after a dragonfly.

For what is eternity but to be “a child forever,” (A thing of beauty is a joy forever – Joyce Kilmer). What is kingdom but the realm we once lived before we became grownups, in the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’ in The Little Prince? And salvation? Oh, it is in innocence when the conscience is not bothered. (The Brothers Grimm)

“Naughty dragonfly…I am born once again to a child –
alive and free.”

“Catch the sight of a tree… and rest for a while.”
- Under the Fig Tree

“Speak to me in the loveliness of a rose
Fresh and sparkling with the morning dew.”
- A World Full of You

“You sing to me in the chirping of love birds,
Greeting each other at the break of day.”
- A World Full of You

“Listen to the story of that grand mountain
Like a faithful sentinel standing there.”
- Fly on My Little Kite.”

“How blest and gifted I am to be one
With a beautiful world.”
- A World Full of You

“Lord, help me become the child of Your Kingdom.”
- Child of the Kingdom

It was a bright morning some two years ago when Sister Macarius visited me at the SPCQ Museum. She showed me these poems. “I have not written poems for a long, long time,” she said and that started a couple of hours of pleasant discussion about poetry today and its significance. She exuded a lovely smile as she recited her poems. “Beautiful,” I said, amazed at what a septuagenarian lady can make of poetry which usually blooms in youth. That was the last time I saw Sister Macarius.

The amihan wind had just arrived. I saw a tarat bird perched on the nearby caimito tree singing. Up in the sky a kite was flying. I remembered Sister Macarius.

“Fly on my little kite
Do not let fear daunt you,
For the hand that holds the strings
Knows best and watches over you.”

x x x

Lake in a Lake

Dr Abe V Rotor

Laguna de Bay, Los Baños, Laguna

Once I asked:

why did you secede 

from the womb 

and hands 

that raised you?

As I pondered 

on Daedalus of Crete 

and the Prodigal Son;

your clear waters 

reflected a face 

no other than my own.

I threw a pebble 

and ripples broke away 

from the question.

Light in the Woods, 1995 Megabooks

Fossil Hunting - Study and Hobby

Next time you visit a quarry, or landscape supplier, or if you are walking along a river bed, or rocky cliff, be keen at the possible presence of fossils, like petrified wood.
Dr Abe V Rotor

Legends are rich in stories of the supernatural when gods do the impossible to the awe and fear of mortals, such as turning man into rock. Or wood into rock. For who would deny the markings of every tissue of the demised tree - its xylem vessels, phloem which carry manufactured food from the leaves, the pith or dead center of the wood? In fact one can count the age of the tree when it died by counting the annular rings. And how long had the tree died. The circumstances of its death, and the events like drought, flood, fire that it had undergone.

Top: Teachers view the Fossil Collection of the Museum of Natural History, UPLB, Laguna; author (left) studies fossil of a Nautillus. Right: fossils of Amonites, and ancient fish fossils.  

Next time you visit a quarry, or landscape supplier, or simply walking along a river bed, or rocky cliff, be keen at the possible presence of petrified wood. If there are more clues to the fossil you can even tell what tree it was. Is it already extinct? Is it the ancestor of modern species? What if the tree has not changed, evidenced by its similarity with its living progeny?

Indeed fossils are nature's geologic timepieces; they take us thousands, if not millions of years back. Didn't Charles Darwin gauge the stages of evolution of plants and animals through paleontology - the science of the study of fossils?

At first I didn't see it, until the tides left it in shallow water. It is a fossil of a very big staghorn coral, its base cut like the anther of a deer after the mating season. So clean did it appear I can count the number of years the coral lived. But that is deceiving because corals grow very slow. It takes fifty long years to grow to the size of a man's head. Each ring therefore, is compounded with other rings, making it difficult to tell the exact age of the fossil. A clear break may be an indication of an extreme condition of the environment that left such mark.

Around the fossil are many fossils of small organisms, other corals and shells. Fossils are known by their total age by combining the age of the fossil itself and the age of the surrounding rock.

How do fossils retain their form and structure even to the detail? Well, calcium carbonate seeps into the cells, and tissues, and in this particular case, into the fine structures like pores of the coral skeleton where the compound solidifies hard - harder than the mold itself. It's a skeleton in a skeleton, so to speak. Through hundreds or thousand of years the mold disintegrates leaving behind the hardened calcium compound. The process is also the same in wood turning into rock - petrified rock.

Here is a fossil of a bivalve - a big Tridachna, as large as the shell of its progeny shown in the lower photo. This shell is a receptacle of holy water at the entrance of Mt. Carmel Church QC. Shells survive adverse conditions of the environment, and as such also retain their original shape and form. Sand and silt become sedimentary rock entombing the shell until it is discovered through erosion and other means.

  

Fossils are made in a different way such as a hairy caterpillar stuck in oozing latex of rubber tree. The latex solidifies and hardens into rock, the same way an insect is engulfed in oozing resinous substance of pine tree. The resin hardens into a clear transparent material with the doomed insect or any other creature clearly visible. Resin turns into amber. 

Remember Jurassic Park movie? A mosquito after feeding on blood of a dinosaur was trapped in amber. The DNA of the extinct monster was reconstructed from the mosquito's food blood. Of course this is fiction. But Flash Gordon and Jules Verne proved beyond being just fiction writers.

  

 Fossil of a bivalve

  
 Petrified wood is actually rock which bears the exact likeness of the original wood. The species can be traced to present specimens.   

Everyday we encounter fossils and pseudo 
fossils we simply call skeletons, or artifacts if they did not directly come from living things. Fossils are always in the making. There is no ceasing since the appearance of life on earth, and ever expanding with increasing biodiversity of the living world. 

Making of a fossil.  Hairy caterpillar trapped in latex becomes a fossil thousands, millions of years from now. 

They are the remains of living things that survive time and circumstances, and of luck or fate as people put it. The older and better preserved fossils are, the more significant is the discovery - and the more we realize the secrets they reveal. Scientists reconstruct fossils close to their original form and virtual reality, complete with the organism's movements, sounds, habitat, special effects included. Thanks to advanced technology and fine arts.

Toys are then patterned after these reconstructed fossils. I know of children who grew up with collections of dinosaurs, birds, mammals, fish- all reconstructions from fossils. Many of these children grew into scientists and naturalists. I know of other children who were more interested with toy cartoon characters. They took a different career path, less meaningful and fulfilling than that of the latter children.

Geologic time is not constant though it may be contiguum. There are intervening factors we may not and never know. And if this were the case, we say, we have yet to discover the "missing link." Such was the predicament of Darwin in his theory of evolution, the bewilderment of Wallace before him, and the deceiving simplicity of Lamarck theory to decipher correctly the path of evolution. Fossils reveal the web of life as a labyrinth. We can only appreciate the early works of other paleontologists that Cuvier and Huxley who could only make inferences about life in the past and the present. In spite of all these, the world looks at all these men as pioneers and greatest fossil hunters.

Do you like to be a fossil hunter, too? ~

Photography: Capture those fleeting moments of joy

Dr Abe V Rotor

Joy, like genius, comes in sparks,

 as fresh as a passing wind,

or bubbles from a lake in spurts,

released from life's dark bin.

Moment with friends

Moment on a spiritual occasion

Moment with a child in a garden

Moment with music and a rare audience

Moment with bunny 

 Moment on stage

  Moment to celebrate birthday

Moment with a trained pet

Good morning to a camia flower

Fountain from the Traveler's palm 

 Playing with the saints and angels 

 A bath tub is never too small

A clan on vacation

 Twin waterfalls in Patapat, Cagayan

" Insectivorous" biology teachers

 Who says sungka is only for children?

Victory and pogi signs.  Summer workshop for kids.  

 Madame Butterfly 

Up and down the mountain trail on Mt Makiling, Laguna   

Posing with nangka, the biggest fruit in the world.

Banana stalk for packaging and transporting fresh fruits and vegetables, and live fish.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Flowers of himbaba-o or alokong (Ilk), a wild vegetable can remain fresh even after three days inside banana stalk. A single stalk is stripped from the trunk and folded according to desired size.

This is to re-introduce an old folks' way of packaging using folded banana stalk as shown in these photos. It is highly efficient, versatile, economical and environment-friendly.

This method of packaging is ideal for live fish like dalag and hito. These fish can remain alive for several days in transport and rough handling. Their resistance is traced to their habit of aestivating in summer while encrust in mud. Packaging in banana stalk is simulating aestivation.

Banana stalk is used in packaging are highly perishable and breakable items, which include many succulent vegetables, ripe fruits, cut flowers, and eggs.

Note the cross-section of banana stalk. It is actually made of a series of chambers that works on the principle of a radiator. That's how efficient its cooling effect is. These chambers trap oxygen and moisture which also explains why sliced banana stalk is a good substitute of ice pack to reduce fever.

The columnar arrangement of the chambers supported by thick outer and inner walls absorb impact of rough handling, and makes the whole structure virtually crush-proof. It is from this that the corrugated cardboard was invented.

Why don't you try packaging with banana stalk farm goods you wish to send to the city? It is a way of "bridging our folks in the province with those in the in the city."

x x x