4—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, November 21, 1964
From Where We Stand...
Who Needs Whom?
It has been said that the one fea
ture that characterizes a good bargain
is that both parties feel that they got
the best of the deal.
This is not immediately apparent,
however, if we consider the farm-city
relationship and their mutual exchange
of products and money. Too often the
city folk think they are being robbed
when they do their food shopping; and
the farm people think they are practical
ly giving their products away.
We are beginning a week that is
nationally recognized as Farm-City
Week. We wonder how much under
standing will be gained on both sides
this week of the interdependence that
exists between these two groups. Per
haps some, but the farmer has a tre
mendous promotional job to do if he is
to put his products on the city markets
and come home with a fair return for
his investment in labor and materials.
We wonder how many children,
and adults too, will sit down to their
Thanksgiving dinners and give any
thought to what went into producing
such bounty. It is within the realm
of possibility that many city children
could grow up secure in the knowledge'
that the shopping center supermarket
“manufactures” all its own food pro
ducts, and they could live to old age
without ever seeing a cow, or a hen,
or a plowed field. This is rather unlikely
with present day transportation and the
higher levels of mass education.
But it is very likely that few city
dwellers realize the full impact of the
contribution the farmer makes to their
lives. For example, how many of them
realize that farmers add nearly $4O
billion to the national economy each
year through their purchases of produc
tion materials and for filling their per
sonal needs?
When Mrs. City Consumer goes to
the supermarket and complains that
all her money is going for food we
wonder if anyone ever pointed out to
her that a smaller percentage of her
income is needed for food in the U S.
than would be true if she were a citizen
of any other country in the world
Fifteen years ago the average U S
family spent 26 cents of each dollar ot
spendable income for food Last year it
was less than 19 cents Next year it will
be still lower.
In other developed countries of the;
world a considerably larger percentage
of family income goes for food, In Eng
land, 29 percent; in Japan, 40 percent;
in Russia, about 50 percent In some
less-developed countries such as India
it may run as high as 75 percent'
What makes this great difference?
• Frey
(Continued from Page 1)
ley Mast who showed a Heie
ford to the title in 1961
Lancaster County lesults in
the jumoi division
ANGUS
Senior Calf 1, John Fiey,
Quarryville R 2 (Reserve Angus
Champion), 2, Wesley Mast,
Elverson, R 2, 3, C William
Fiey, Quanyville R 2, 8, Mi-
Lancaster Farming
Lancaster County’s Own Farm
Weekly
P O Box 266 - Lititz, Pa.
Offices:
22 E Main St.
Lititz, Pa.
Phone - Lancaster
394-3047 or
Lititz 623-21° 1
Don Timmons, Editor
Robert G- Campbell, Adver
tising Director
Established November 4,
1955. Published every Satur
day by Lancaster-Farming, Lit
-IU. Pa.
Second Class Postage paid
at Lititz, Pa and at additional
mailing offices.
The American farmer and his relatively
competitive economy, that’s what!
Since the immediate postwar years
farm prices for food have tumbled about
15 percent. As we are all well aware,
this has put many farmers out of busi
ness. It has forced farmers to double
and triple the size of their previous
operations and to employ new produc
tion techniques in the effort to show a
profit over increasing production costs.
Some economists tell us that demand is
on the verge of catching up with our
abundant supply. This could mean a bet
ter return to the farmer who has been
financially able to hang on in the face
of cost-price inequities that have exist
ed for fifteen years. However, it will
still be only the efficient farmers who
will realize the benefits of the new
boom
We wonder further if anyone has
firmly pointed out to the consumer that
while farm prices were falling since
1947-'49. most of the increased prices
paid by the consumer were due to add
ed processing and handling costs? If
farm prices for food had advanced to
the same extent that retail prices of food
have advanced over the past several
years, housewives would now be spend
ing one-sixth more for food than they
are.
So who needs whom? At first
glance it would appear that the city
folks need the farmer far more than he
needs them.
But before we reach any hasty
conclusions perhaps we should look at
two obvious facts. One, without all those
non-farmers to be fed we’d need even
fewer farmers than we have now. Two, in
view of the decreasing number of farm
ers and the new apportionment ruling,
the farmer’s representatives in govern
ment are going to need the cooperation
of city’s representatives even more than
they did before to get legislation favor
able to the rural people passed.
It would appear that we are enter
ing a period when the interdependence
of farmer and city dweller will reach
new heights It will be largely up to the
rural folk and their organizations to
educate our city customers on just what
the farmer contributes to their everyday
lives, and to the national economy
We can’t afford to ever let them
forget that they nee/1 the farmer every
bit as much as he needs them. This will
require our efforts not just during farm
city week, but all around the calendar.
We can probably best do this through
our local, state, and national farm or
ganizations. It’s going to have to be
just one more necessary cost of doing
business.
chael Hosier, Manheim R 3; 14,
Larry E Brubaker, Elizabeth
town R 3
Summer Yearling 1, Larry
Weaver, New Holland Rl; 6,
Bairy Longeneckei, Lititz R 2;
7, Rodney Harmsh, Refton; 11,
Fred Linton, Jr, Quarryville
R 2
Junior Yeailmg 1, John
Fiey (Angus Champion, Grand
Champion), 4,6, Wesley Mast,
10, Jay Bixler, Marietta Rl.
HEREFORD
Senioi Calf 1, Wesley Mast
(Reserve Hereford Champion)
Summer Yeailmg 1, Wesley
Mast, 2, Hany Nissly, Lancas
tei, 8, Michael Longenecker,
Lititz R 2, 11, Fied Linton, Jr;
12, Michael Hosier, 17, Jay
Bixler
Junior Yeailmg 5, Carl
Guthudge, Marietta Rl, 7, Don
ald Snyder, Lititz R 3; 15,
James Nolt, Mount Joy, Rl; 16,
Robeit Hoffmes, Marietta Rl.
SHORTHORN
Senior Calf 1, Wesley Mast
(Champion Shorthorn, Reserve
Grand Champion), Summer
What Do YOU Think?
• Form Credit
(Continued from Page 1)
Park, the Bay of Fundy, and
Maine
The Federal Land Bank of
Lancaster declared a 3 per cent
dividend to stockholders of
record as of August 31, 1964,
according to Carl A. Brown,
Manager of the Lancaster
Faim Credit Association. The
dividend was paid to more
than 460 stockholders, all of
whom are farmers who have
had Land Bank loans on their
farm pioperties. These checks
were piesented to members at
the Annual Meetings
Long-term, Federal Land
Bank loans outstanding in the
Lancaster - Dauphin - Lebanon
county area were reported to
total moie than $7,892,000 as
of October 30, 1964.
Yearling 5, Donald, Snyder.
COUNTY GROUPS
1, Red Rose 4-H Baby Beet
Club (Angus); 5, Red Rose
Baby 4-H Beef Club (Here
ford).
The Good Fight j
Lesson for November 22,1961 j
Bftckcround Scripture: 11 Timothy
3 10-13;4
Devotional Readinet Psalm 34 1-13.
ANY ONE who think? the road
to eternal life is lined with
roses and paved with violets
should freshen up his memory
of the Apostle Paul. He was a
saint, but not a quiet one. He
"•netually in trouble with
' the government.
Many people,
some of them in
fluential, in the
church were
against him. He
was called liar,
crank, agitator,
heretic, tiaitor to
his own people.
Altogether a con
troversial figure, a man who was
always (so it was alleged) stir
ring up trouble. Now many men
lead stormy lives; but not all of
them are saints. The thing that
sets Paul out, for us, in the ranks
of the great servants and cham
pions of God, was the fact that
he never doubted that he was
right and that he was on God’s
side. In spite of his rough and
partly unsuccessful life, he was
and remained a happy man.
The good fight
By the time Paul wrote this
letter to Timothy, he was near
the end of his time on earth, and
he knew it. He can look back on
his life, as an old man can, and
sum it all up once and for all,
before the final fall of the cur
tain. He uses language which is
a long way from saying he had
had an easy time. I have fought
the good fight, he says. Not lust
a good fight, but the good fight,
the struggle between God and
evil. It is a fight that began
before the human race appearec
on this earth. It burst oi
anew wnen mankind arrived on
the scene; every man is in
volved in it whether ha knows
it or not For whatever a
man does counts for God or
it counts for evil. Some
Now Is The Time . ..
A good time for dairymen to check the
growth rate of their young heifers is in the
fall when they are hi ought in for the winter.
Heifers that are a year old are about half
way to freshening age and should be almost
large enough to breed Measuring tapes are
available and then the height of the animal
at the withers and the size of her heart girth
can be compared to the breed standard for a
certain age Animals that are undersize
should be fed extra amounts of grain and
roughage in order to get large growthy ani
mals at freshening age.
To Fertilize Cover Crops
MAX SMITH Cover crops such as winter grain, rye
grass, bromegrass, or any grass-type sod may be fertilized late
in the fall in order to give maximum amount of growth late
this fall and early next spring Little, if any, nitrogen will be
lost, since it is taken up by cover crop and held during the
winter. A complete soil test taken now in preparing for the
crop to be grown next summer should determine the amount
and kind of fertilizer needed.
To Manage Sheep Flock exemse 15 impol
'
We have approximately one To Clean Power Mower
thousand flocks of sheep in Lawn mowing is almost
Lancaster County, winter care completed on most lawns;
and proper management is however, the mower should be
very important toward a good cleaned and propeily stored
lamb crop. The ewes should f or the winter. We suggest
have outside daily exercise that the gas tank be drained
and have fiee access to good and then run the engine until
quality legume hay. Alfalfa the tank is dry; this may pre
or red clover hay is preferred vent a gum deposit in the gas
If the animals do not get ime and in the fuel filter. The
legume hay, then it is ad- oil should be drained from the
visable to add some molasses crankcase and new oil added;
or linseed’oilmeal to the gram the air filter should be cleaned
ration. Pregnant ewe paraly- and new oil added. Prepare
sis early next spring may be the mower now for the first
a problem if the ewes are con- mowing job next spring and it
fined too closely or not fed a will lengthen the life of the
laxative grain and hay ration, machine.
good people, appalled by the
dreadful power of evil, and
shaken by what they see
'going on in the world around
them, have sought refuge in
I flight. They have gone into her
mits* cells or into monasteries —*
' anywhere out of this wicked
world. Paul was not of that stripe.
He stayed to join the fight. Per
; haps Paul was thinking of, the
j Roman "games" in the Coliseum,
I between small armies of gladia
i tors, fighting to the very death.
At any rate Paul was not in this
great struggle “just for kicks”
i but to the end even if that meant
death.
The great race
1 At any rate, when Paul says
he has fought the good fight he
uses a word which can be ex
pressed in athletic terras: I have
played on the team. A member
of an Olympic team (now, and
then also) is not a soloist. He
has to keep in mind that he is
competing as representing a na
tion as well as a team. Paul is
thinking of life as a struggle in
which the contestants encourage
and help one another.
Along with the business about
-the fight, Paul uses another
figure of speech to get his mean
ing across. I have finished the
race, he says. Finished any
one can start a marathon, but
how many can finish it? There is
something about the word "race”
that just fits as a description of
the Christian’s active life. A run
ner must not be distracted by
crowds, by applause or booing.
He must keep his eye, or his
mind’s eye, on the finishing tape.
I was rescued
Paul learned it the hard way:
life is not all a fight or a race.
It is not all a glorious struggle
with many spectators. It is often
a matter not of doing but being
done to; not of active living but
patient suffering. Paul in jaU for
the "crime" of preaching the
truth about God; Paul attacked
by slander and unwilling to slan
der in return; Paul kept on the
anxious seat for years waiting
for a corrupt judge to pass a
verdict; Paul with his "thorn in
the flesh” that would not go
away ... much of bis life was
just standing what he had to
stand. But always God was there;
always he would find God stand
ing there too. A saint must strug
gle; a saint must suffer; and he
does not always get his crown
in this world.
(Based on outlines eoDyrlriilea by ilia
Division of Christian Education, National
Council of the Churches of Christ in tha
11. S. A, Released by Community frets
Service.)
BY MAT mWITB
To Check Growth Rate