By Bion H. Butler
We talk about the climate and the pine trees, and the various charms and advantages of the Sandhills, but one question about this section that seems to be asked continuously is concerned with two things, water and milk. A man who has to do with renting and selling houses, and with providing winter accommodations for visitors, says that all the time he is answering letters in which one conspicuous feature is that water and milk are above reproach. In the recent few years much has been done to change the character of the milk supply in cities and towns, and in all that has been done the sandhill towns are keeping up. Pinehurst has been known as a particular place as regards to both milk and water supply, but even at that Pinehurst is more particular today than even two or three years ago because all the time more is being discovered regarding milk and water, and Pinehurst keeps up with the day’s development, no matter what it may be.
Pinehurst long ago built modern barns, and adopted modern methods of caring for the herd of cattle which is one of the most famous among the Ayrshire herds of the United States. Pinehurst long ago established health conditions for the herd, and began the testing for infectious, contagious or other diseases or ailments of any sort. Pinehurst has kept up with any new scientific discovery or practice and is widely known as one of the leaders in every effort to see that the milk produced is rated within the highest possible requirement. If milk is produced any place under more careful conditions than at Pinehurst, I do not know of the place. If any better methods are practiced anywhere, I do not imagine Pinehurst knows of such methods and Pinehurst and its medical advisers and chemists have a right complete knowledge of what is going on in the world. Pinehurst invites every test, and meets all of them.
And as visitors at Pinehurst go from time to time to Southern Pines they are interested to know that the milk supply of Southern Pines is held at a high standard there. A testing system in the hands of a capable chemist is installed there, and while Southern Pines has always been particular about its milk supply from now on the standard will be as rigid as the state laws and the continued attention of a resident chemist, backed by the state health bureau and the state agricultural department can make it. The visitor at Pinehurst can be sure that milk at Pinehurst is of the highest character, and that if he drops into the neighbor towns of Southern Pines and Knollwood Village for a round of golf, or other recreation, he is perfectly safe to stay for dinner, or for anything else that involves a bite to eat.
With water it is possible there are a few places where three adjacent villages like Pinehurst, Knollwood and Southern Pines have such modern and satisfactory water systems. Within the last few months Pinehurst and Southern Pines have rebuilt their water plants. The work has been under the direction of capable engineers, and with the installation of the most approved late appliances. The day of the old oaken bucket has gone along with other old dreams, and no longer does the bucket figure. A modern water supply system is one of the most interesting examples of able engineering, chemical practice and constant research that men are familiar with. Pinehurst is supplied with water fed from springs to a great collecting and distributing plant. But collecting and distributing are only incidents in the work, and mechanical incidents at that. Primarily the water supply at Pinehurst is furnished by springs which have received the filtered water from the big sand bed that constitutes the neighborhood of the village. Frequent examinations show that this water is singularly free from disease bacteria, and that it may be used as it comes from the springs with perfect safety. But that does not satisfy Pinehurst, so a big mechanical filtering plant is provided, and a chemical purifying equipment, and a capable chemist to make frequent tests to ensure water that is as far above reproach as Caesar’s wife. Some of the water of the Sandhills has a slightly acid character. few people would suspect it. But the matter is not left to suspicion. The acid is tested by a chemical investigation, and it is taken out by a chemical proves. A slight turbidity is found at times in all water. Chemical agents precipitate that turbidity, and clear the water of all matter in solution. In some of the water a small amount of iron or perhaps lime, or some other practically inoffensive ingredient is often present. But Pinehurst goes gunning after these useless members and throws them out. In the last few years chemists working on the water supply of the United States have brought about many changes, and these changes ae seized at Pinehurst, and the water supply improved by every known means. The old oaken bucket would have no more chance of supplying water for the village of Pinehurst than the old ash cake or the old bake kettle would of supplying foods.
And when you go over to Southern Pines and Knollwood Village, the same safety is encountered. These villages are supplied by the new plant on the Carthage road from Southern Pines, and there a chemist every day looks after the water that is brought into the big reservoirs and dispatched after proper treatment to the tanks on the hill at Weymouth Heights above Southern Pines. And when you talk to the chemist at one of these water plants, he is no longer confined to the filtering of the water, but he tells you of the aeration, the purification of the action by sunlight with its actinic influence and colored light rays, and the elimination of dissolved gases and the substitution of air for gasses that may have seen in the water and a hundred thing you never had supposed had anything to do with water. Water is simply a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, and when anything else is in the mixture the purity is affected. But water cannot be found in a state of purity, or kept pure very long after it is made unless it is absolutely free from air or from any soluble substance. So the chemist undertakes to make water as pure as possible, and what he does to ordinary water from the earth is astonishing. But he does it in the Pinehurst country, and with naturally good water to start with and all the modern facilities the water used in the Sandhurst villages is about the best in the world. Thad that is the answer sent back to inquirers.
From page 4 of The Pinehurst Outlook, May 1, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn91068725/1926-05-01/ed-1/seq-4/
No comments:
Post a Comment