4—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 27, 190 b From Where We Stand... Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind While this trite old expression may be suitable for many things, it definitely should not apply to pollution of our underground water supplies. According to Dr. Grover H. Em rich, Pennsylvania Department of Heal th, this is the unfortunate attitude that seems to prevail. “It is normally more difficult to pollute these underground sources than surface water, but once polluted ground water may remain contaminated for 50-100 years,” he warns. “Surface water, on the other hand, can recover rapidly once the source of pollution is eliminated.” Dr. Emrkrh claims that certain areas, such as those over limestone layers as Lancaster County are especially susceptible to ground water pollution due to improper waste dis posal About 50 percent of the county is underlain by limestone, and about one fourth of the ground water in that area is believed to be polluted,-according to Dr. Emrich. These areas of pollution are naturally in the more densely populated parts of the county in and around the larger cities. Emrich has observed that indivi-. duals, communities and industries are inclined to be quite lax in their attitudes about pollution of this important source' of water as indicated by their careless disposal of wastes “People have been dumping their wastes into the ground for years.” Emrich says “Since it go~s out of sight, they have little further con cern about it.” The State Sanitary Water Board has approved deep disposal wells in five .# Free-Stall (Continued fiom Page 1) fiee of hay and straw, and breaking the fiozen chunks too laige for the liquid spreadei He has had no trouble with the spi eadei emp tying the pit 'when the manure was completely mixed The 775-gallon spreader uses a vacuum to pull the liquid manure through a four-inch hose from the pit fn the field the piocess is reversed The manure is sprayed over a 20 ft. wide aiea by using aibout five pounds of piessure on the tank The cows are milked in the 17 stalls m the original cow stable. Jacob finds these definite advantages to the fiee-stall system 1) Cows aie cleaner —no cuirymg needed 2) less 'tiouble with tiampled teats to detect heat cows 4) cows and swollen knees 3) easier aie healthier Houser is sold on this way of handling cows “We have small acreage and went to this foi yeai-aiound stoied feeding ” he said “Hired help is also a pioblem so we need ed a one-man opeiation to handle moie cows” “We aie veiy well pleased,” he continued “But it cost a lot of money This is not an opinion it is a fact ” he amusingly concluded PART II by Don Timmons, Editor “Fiee-stall housing cut our ibedding costs alone from $l5 per day per barn, to about 30 cents pei cow foi the \\hole wmtei,” said Sherwood “Pete” Hufford manager of the Stioud Daily Farm near Kennett Square The Stioud Farm has com pleted three yeais with this system of management For one yeai pnor to putting in .stalls they used loose housing alone, and consumed about one-half ton of straw daily to tied the cows m each of two Darns The savings from le duced bedding costs paid for areas of the state for safe disposal of industrial wastes, This was done only after careful study to be sure that drink able ground water will not be polluted in the process. As our county continues to suffer the pains of expanding population pres sures this problem will become increas ingly pertinent. It is one to which our communities must pay increasing at tention. Cattle Cycle All indications are that the cattle cycle is at a turning point. The “ex perts” seem fairly agreed that a de cline in cattle numbers is.,in ths .offing for this year, in spite of the two-percent increase in cattle inventory on January 1, 1965. That increase was less than for either of the two preceding years. The last downswing in cattle num bers was in 1955, and that lasted'only three years Since 1958 the industry has been on an upswing. In the past year the rate of slaughter has been well above 1963 13 percent, and so far this year it is continuing near 1964 levels Will this mean higher prices for cattle feeders? To a great extent that would appear to defend on the weather. If the wide-spread drought were to con tinue this year it would force higher movements of cow herds to slaughter Lacking that, it is predicted that prices for the balance of the year will remain near year-ago levels But the overall price trend appears favorable. COWS “TAKING IT EASY” IN FREE-STALLS AT THE STROUD DAIRY The stalls are raised about 8 inches above the concrete walkway, and they contain about 4 inches of packed sawdust over a sand and gravel fill. The stalls measure 4 feet by 8 feet and cost $l6 40 to build, including materials, labor, and concrete walkway L F Photo the stalls the fiist yeai, Huf foid calculates Accoiding to Hufford it cost Sl6 40 to construct each stall, including la'boi, mateu als, and an 8-foot wide con ciete walkway between the lows of stalls Theie aie 54 stalls in one bain, and 66 in the other 1 he buildings aie tiussed, pole hams with the south sides open Huffoid es timated building costs at $1 pei squai e foot Although the wood stalls the 4 feet by 8 feet, Huffoid felt that a length of IVz feet would be piefeiafole since moie of the manure would be diopped outside the stall Four inches of sawdust is used for bedding, and the stalls are completely cleaned about thiee oi four times each year No time is spent cuiry mg the cows and yet they ap peared lemarkably clean The only daily cleaning mainten ance consists of scraping the manure from the end of the What Do You Think? ★ ★ ★ stall onto the walkway From theie the operation is mech anized A tractor with a rear scrapei attachment pulls the manuie fiom the walks into the concietecl e'Heicise yaid From theie it is pushed into (Continued on Page 12) 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 623-219’ Don Timmons, Editor Robert G. Campbell, Adver- tising Director Established November 4, 1955. Published every Satur 3ay by Lancastei-Fanning. Lit t_ Pa Second Class Postage paid at Lititz, Pa. and at additional r-~;~ „ longer posaune w nege. xnere v '|rft / comes a time when choice Is no VeT) ( rf t Tr} t r? Tel /' longer possible, a time when the \ jjyjJitLiydJbiLll very One who invited you must \ SPFAKS say to you, “I never knew you.” It is not true (though we may ■ ' wish it were! that every soul on — ear th is heavenward hound. Some sin themselves—er sleep themselves!—into the outer dark* nessi , ♦ • v - lnt*rn*U#niJ Unllotm Sunday School Unana What you don’t do Those foolish vicgiM who found themselves shut o«t fton the wedding feast oooijl sty truthfully that they had dant Buckcround Scrlulurc: Matthew 25 nothing WTOng. MOybO Ul! thO Devotional Keadlnr: Matthew 25 31-« trouble With them WAS Ut Wbtt A FT&R a person has died, they did but what they tojit obituaries are written. Peo- to do. They were Mt ■alWouS pie who knew the dead man (or nor selfish;; they had aUßfly not woman) will recall the circum been ihey were yi stances and achievements, if any, ready for a ynye OMggeaer of the man who is now gone, auch as the MMegrwWrwroof '-aracter will be late: It is pretty USyU tot al , idged by many, the bad things waaemdWand „ he is a prom* trice ctejiit to, tent person wo ' mown all over bave done< It » s * Mary aort of ie nation; or by p erson ( - * hte never' 4om ' >w if his life gntnßt hfag good! ' Bnt ' thesd ras obscure. But foolish .girls werc aat shut out tdged he will because of anything ttujjy had i, more than done; it was what they dHfiit do. Dr. Foreman ever in his life- -,j a | as s j n • time, for good or ill. The story —•*»««' is closed, the evidence is all in d •■Jff Five ...But no. it is not all in. There picked Virgms. W is much about every human . covin* “I think being which others can never „ Not was tiMy. But know. Only God has all the evx- foolishness cln be gg fatal as sin. dence, only God knows what the H o ften we the story, man was really like, inside. So bow ofteQ Wft have ukta a , art God and only God can be the - t ourse j ves i «j aught have final Only he can say Well known that remir it would hurt done! at last. her , but i didn’t think . . .” “It never occurred to me how badly I had been treating Negroes.. “1 had a chance at an education, but I was only a high school kid, and I didn’t think ...” “I wish I had let her know while she was living how much 1 appre* dated her, but 1 never thought ~“The stuff had been in ths refrigerator quite a while, but I didn’t think..l So it goes, and it will go, ta the end of time perhaps. But it is not Judgment Day yet. Your] list of “I didn’t thinks” may b® a long one; but you ow’ stop; adding to it today. Think! Ar® you ready? j Are You Ready? Lesson for March 28,1965 The door can be shut Our Lord told a number of par ables about the last judgment. It is true that many of his judg ments do not wait for some Last Day; injustice and other sms are often punished almost soon as committed. One ot these parables is the familiar one about the ten maidens, five wise and five foolish. There are three points that most people would say are very clear here. One is that there is going to be a, closed door, and not everybody will be on the same side. As has been said by a famous man, we should not feel too sure about the furnishings of heaven nor the temperature of hell; but we can’t "shut our eyes to that closed door. There comes a time when it is ho Now Is The Time ... To Spray Wild Garik Dairymen who have the problem of wild garlic in their pasture are reminded that earlv spring is one of the best times to spray the aiea, the use of 2,4-D in the esther form at the rate of one to one and-a-half pounds per acie each spring will go far toward the elimination of this weed By spraying very eaily in the spring the wild garlic plants aie easiei to kill and less damage is done to legumes in the pasture mixture To Study Soil Test Report As many farmers have learned, the com plete soil test report has been changed in the past two years, most of the fertilizer re- commendations are in pounds of plant food MAX SMITH per acie rather than pounds of a certain grade of fertilizer. This requires some evaluation and planning in order to pio vide the needed soil elements We suggest that farmers fellow the recommendations and with the use of the Agronomy Guide, figure the cheapest form of fertilizer needed to piovide the requested amounts To Add Phosphate to Manulife Barnyard manure continues to toe an important source of plant food to local farmers. With the very heavy livestock and /poultry /population in this area, the proper care and handling of manure is essen tial If it /is to be stored and held, it should /be under roof wheie weather elements will not have a chance to leach out the plant food All man ures are low in phosphorus and m this area the majority of soils are also lo