—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 27, 1963 4 From Where We Stand... Keep Lancaster County Green Lancaster County has less woodland than the city of Philadelphia. If this statement seems hard to be lieve, consider this fact. Several of the county’s townships have no woodland area at all. Lancaster County has never been known as a timber producing area among the counties of “Penn’s Woods”. Lancaster County has made her reputa tion as the Garden Spot of the World on the strength of her agricultural pro duction, but we believe trees are a much more important item to the county than census figures would indicate. It has been said that the woodlot is the most neglected part of the farm, and this may well be so. In spite of the fact that much of the county’s woodland remains unharvested long after most of the timber is mature, the last census showed that 181 farms in 1959 cut or sold trees to the extent of 1,120 cords of firewood, 352 cords of pulpwood, 6,805 fence posts, and 558,000 board feet of lumber. Sales of wood products dur ing the year brought county farmers $73,913 in cash in addition to the pro ducts used at home. While this figure is not large in comparison to many of the other farm products sold in Lancaster County, it shows that some farmers are making their woodlots pay their way. It shows that woodlots can return a profit if they are managed properly, and that some farmers might turn a “break-even” year into a profitable one if they would harvest a mature wood crop. But we believe trees deserve consid eration for another reason in Lancaster County. The Garden Spot is fast becom ing a residential area with less and less open space. Fewer and fewer acres of woodland remain each year and more and more people are looking for a re treat from city living. We believe that woodlands will be come more and more important to the recreation and aesthetic value of the county, and that recreation and rural beauty will become more and more im portant commodities every year as our population continues to grow. There is very little timber in the county on land level enough to crop successfully, and there are many slopes, now in cropland, that would be better replanted to some kind of trees. We believe that trees should be considered as a crop in Lancaster Coun ty, and that they should be harvested when ripe, protected from pests when necessary, and replanted if need be. At least that’s how it looks from where we stand. ★ ★ ★ High Yields We get taken to task occasionally for things that appear in the columns of this paper. We appreciate this especially when we feel we can justify the state ments that are being criticized. Why? we were asked recently, do you always make such a big thing about high production records when there is such a surplus of so many commodities already ? It is true that yields have been • County FFA (Continued from Page 1) > O-O-O-G nated a plaque for the grand I _ and reserve champion A pla- *-<mCOSter Farming que will be presented to the Lancaster County’s Oim Farm school with the highest num- Weekly ber of points in the entire show. Ribbons will be awarded to sixth place The show and sale will be managed by Lewis Avers, tea- ~ . a . cher of vocational agnculture Lititv p^ 1 * 1 at Ephrata High School Assist- ’ mg Ayeis will be Lariy Loose, Phone - Lancaster partner and opeiatoi of Ahe Express 4-3047 or "Srenn- Dragon arrhrs-etmrpannr-- tatife--AIA ; ‘6-2 k.-- -■= going up and that outstanding yields do get a lot of publicity, but should we praise everyone who has a crop failure ? Just because we happen to have a tem porary oversupply of some food items, should we encourage farmers to do less than their best? We can see no excuse for any farm er to intentionally produce a poor yield. We can see no reason for anyone to do less than his best. If a farmer needs a hundred bushels of corn and he can produce that amount on one acre, we can see no justification for him to plant three acres and limit the yield on each acre to thirty-three and a third bushels. Of course we are producing more corn and potatoes, more hay and wheat, more meat and milk per acre than we have ever produced before. This is one of the reasons that America is the best fed and best clothed nation in the world, and this is the reason that the American consumer spends a smaller portion of his pay check for food than he has ever spent before. - We have an obligation to ourselves and to the starving peoples all over the world to put every acre to its best and most profitable use. At least that’s how it looks from where we stand. Use Your Seatbelts The Ameri can Medical Association says that it is a well-established fact that seat belts in your automobile can save lives and pre vent or lessen injuries. An immense amount of scientific research, including actual collisions under controlled condi tions, proves that the seatbelt is the sin gle most effective item of protective equipment now available to reduce the toll of traffic injuries and deaths. The AMA report adds that the belts should even be used for short trips, as to school or the neighborhood grocery. ★ .★ ★ ★ Averages Can Be Confusing The Midlothiaan, 111., Messenger notes: “The use of averages can be confusing. As a prominent economist put it recently: Tf a man stands with his right foot on a hot stove and his left foot in a freezer, some statisticians would say that, on the average, he's comfortable.” ’ ★ ★ ★ ★ Rural Life the Best William S. Vaughn, president of Eastman Kodak Co., explains his love for rural living this way: “My father asserted that there was no better place to bring up a family than in a rural environment, and to this day I think it was one of the wisest things he ever said and put into practice .... There’s something about getting up at 5 a.m., feeding the stock and chickens, and milking a couple of cows before breakfast that gives you a life-long’ spect for the price of butter and eggs.” „★★ ★ ★ Taxing Address The Junction City, Ore., Times takes this dim view of our income tax: “Two score and ten years ago our fathers brought forth upon this nation a new tax . . . Now we are engaged in a great mass of calculations, testing whether that taxpayer or any taxpayer so confused and so impoverish ed can long, long endure.” ■birdsfoot trefoil. The object .. To Plush Ewe Flock is to get the ewes in a gaining „ , _ , condition at breeding time. On advance of the breeding Bxpected results _ Quicker season the ewe flock should be conceptlon and more multiple treated for worms and then 'to' put on good, nutritious pas- P. O Box 1524 Established November 4, ture I* the pasture is not avail _ _ Laneaster, Penna. 1955. Published every Satur- f ble ’ , then so ™ e sood le ® um ® This thought is worthy of P. O. Box 266 - Lititz Pa _ . _ . „ hay plus one to two pounds of , ’ day by Lancaster-Farming, Lit- grain per head daily should be t” ,T y each sea- Itz. Pa. £ed It is preferred that the Wlth the various fBrtlllz t F , , ers chemicals being used „ pasture contain larger amounts „ , , . Entered as 2nd class matter 0 f the grasses such as tmiothv tbee days ’ the opportunit y for do ~ v, s rass es sucn as tmiotny, chl j dren or i, ve stock to get to at Lititz Pa. under Act of Mar. bluegrass, bromegrass, or or- . . . „ , , , f , ~ them is quite great. Any type 8, 1879 chaid grass and only small t J -.sit! ssr* ' Jack Owen. Editor Robert G. Campbell, Advertising Director - Why Should I Gare? Lesson for July 28, 1963 Bible Material: Genesis 3 through 11. Devotional Reading: 1 John 3:11-12; 4.7-8, 20-21. f\NE Story can have many points. It can be used to illus trate more truths than one. The story of Cain and Abel is a case in point. A thoughtful reader can see in this story how sin gathers avalanche, moving slowly at first, just a little snowslide, but finally picking up boulders and entire houses, crushing every thing in its path. Sin that begins with something attractive and pleasant (like eat- ing fruit) before long becomes violent, ugly, re pulsive, like murder. The reader can also see in the story of Cain and Abel that sin needs very little excuse to break out. Not long ago a young man in Virginia murder ed three people on one afternoon, all because one of them (the three were one family) had “nagged him” about his work. The brutal young man made criticism an ex cuse for murder. God’s two questions But we shall not be speaking of those and other aspects of this sad story; only of one part of it. The first question which God asks, in the Bible story, is “Where are You?” The next question is “Who told you—?” Shortly afterward, “What is this that you have done?” Then in the story of Cain and Abel, again God opens with a question: “Where is Abel your brother?” Where are you? Who told you the lie you have believed? What have you done? Adam and Eve had not expected those ques tions. Neither was Cain looking for the question he got. Cain thought he had finished with Abel. That chapter was closed. The ac count was balanced. He drew a bloody finger across the page. But God faced him with a ques tion. If Cam expected God to take any interest or to make any com ment on what Cain considered to be his own affair, it would be an Now Is The Time . . . Only the minority of Lancaster County MAX M. SMITH farmers are making use ot the Penn State Soil Testing Service. This is one practice that should pay dividends to every land owner; this is one phase of scientific research that can reach and benefit every farmer. In preparing for summer seedings of legumes and for fall grains, it is strongly recommended that a complete soil test be the guiding lime and fertilizer application measure. attack, an accusation. But an Gou does is ask a simple question. It, is the-jnost important question thereof, next ♦« “Where are you?” * Keeparor brother? Perhaps Cain thought that a God who would ask questions in stead of coming down at once with a curse, must be a weak God. At any rate he makes no defense. His reply is another question, an insolent one: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That was not the point, as Dr. James W. Clarke of Rich mond has said. No, Cain was not Abel’s keeper, of course not. “Who wants a keeper?” Nobody wants a keeper. But everybody needs a brother. Abel needed a brother, and Cain had not been one. But the sin of minder does not begin, usually, all at once. This crime of Cain’s began with a re fusal: a refusal to be a keeper, when after all a keeper was not called for. He was responsible for Abel; that was something that perhaps had never occurred to him. And if it had, he shrugged it off. If he could forget that Abel was a brother, then what hap pened to Abel, even what he him self did to Abel, didn’t matter,— so he thought. Responsibility: to God, for our brother What is the root of the troubles in today’s world? A great deal of 'it (though of course not all, for the roots of evil are many!) is just this indifference to what hap pens to other people. We don’t want to be responsible, and when we do start to help some one else, we want to be keeper, not brother. We are willing to tell other people where to get off, we may like to run their affairs, to think and plan for them; but this is not brotherhood. To be responsible for others is not to live their lives for them. It is treating them like brothers. Once you get to the .point of indifference where you don’t really care what happens to another person, you are close to not caring even if he is murdered . . . And that, in the eyes of God is not far from doing the murder yourself How many juvenile, de linquents have gone down into worse ways because no man would be an older brother to one of them’ How many marriages have gone on the rocks because their friends, who could see it coming, did nothing to stave off the trag ' edy’ Hpw many young people have taken the road to alcoholism because their parents didn’t feel responsible for setting an example of temperance and self-denial? How many lives have been wasted because there was no one who really cared? (Based on outlines copyrighted by the Division of Christian Education, N~*ioral Council of the Churches of Christ in the U. S. A. Released by Community Press Service.) BY MAX SMITH To Construct'Trench Silo Some livestock and dairy producers may find their supply of forage greater than their upright silo capacity. In this case the farm er might consider some type of horizontal silo -as, a temporary storage’ unit." TrenChes may be -dug' into a. slope or bunker-type silos may be constructed on level land. Prop er construction and careful management will increase the storage of good quality silage. Additional information and literature is available. To Accept Complete Soil Testing To Store Chemicals Carefully Sj
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers