POTTED INFORMATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19846, 21 May 1927, Page 22 (Supplement)

POTTED INFORMATION

Where the Farmers are Busy. They must be very busy in Western Canada, for, during the last twenty years, they have planted trees at the rate of 20,000 a day! If you feel inclined to do a little rapid arithmetic, just calculate how many trees have been growing there since the planting “hustle”! Postage Stamp Farms. 1

It is impossible to estimate the world’s output in postage stamps, because the number used in a single year is so huge. In the United States of America, however, the figures available give some idea of how great the quantity is. Five-hundred acres of spruce trees alone are cut down for pulping into paper for one year’s supply of United States’ stamps. Every day about 50,000 million stamps are used there, and to make these 3,000 pounds of paper, 3,200 pounds of gum, and 2,200 pounds of ink are required. Printed in fifteen different colours and shades, 47 varieties of stamps are used! Did You Know That—

Paris was the first city in the world to establish street lighting. It was there, in the year 1558, that the inhabitants were ordered to put lanterns containing candles in front of their houses. This method of lighting was substituted in 1788 by bowls of resin or pitch. In 1809, gas was first used for street lighting in London; Baltimore, United States of America, did not try it till twelve years later. The first electric lights appeared in 1881, and were used in New York City, though not until 1896 did gas mantle lamps appear in America.