—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 22, 1972 16 Sri.. Terrific Tillie Gibson, guiding light of the 4-H nutrition program for inner city children. Federal Meat (Continued From Page 1) In an effort to fmd out what was behind the takeover, Lancaster Farming contacted a Washington spokesman for the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Ser vices Division He said that his department had started action because there were deficiencies in the state’s inspection service He was asked if the well-known animosity between Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Jim McHale and U S Secretary Earl Butz had anything to do with the takeover “I’m not in the political side of the department,” he said “I’m a career officer with the Animal Health Services. We’re supposed to be the professionals, as opposed to the politicians. We’re the ones who started the action to take over the state’s meat inspection. As far as I’m concerned, the political thing, the name-calling and all that started after we notified the state that we felt their inspection procedures were deficient ” lune Milk Reported June milk production in Pennsylvania was 610 million pounds, two per cent lower than June production last year, and seasonally lower than May’s production. Average production per cow was 880 pounds for June, com pared with 890 pounds in June a year ago, and 950 pounds in May. The seven per cent decline from May to June is an average seasonal decrease for the period. The amount ot concentrates fed per cow, as of July i, averaged 12 7 pounds, compared with 14.0 pounds on April i This question, which used to be asked monthly, is now asked quarterly at the first of January, April, July, and October The number of milk cows in Pennsylvania was 693,000 in June, the same as a month ago, but down 1 per cent from 702,000 m June 1971 U S milk production during June is estimated at 11,021 million pounds, two per cent more than a year earlier. Daily average production for June is up 0 5 per cent from May compared with no change between these same months last year. June output provided 1.76 pounds per person daily for all uses, com pared with 1.75 pounds last month and June a Year ago. Total milk production during the first 6 months of 1972 is two per cent more than 1971. Inner City Children (Continued From Page 1) families The focus of ENEP is on nutrition education, but there are many other 4-H projects. Even crops “This is the only group in the state that’s growing vegetables, as far as I can tell,” asays Mrs Gibson. “They’ve got other ENEP programs - Pitt sburgh, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and other places - but I don’t think anybody else has got hold of some land to try something like this ” Twenty-six young people, twenty-six garden plots, each a veritable vegetable market Corn, tomatoes, radishes, let tuce, zucchini, squash, water melon, collard, beans are all doing quite well on the plot of ground made available to the group by Lloyd Weaver. Both Weaver and Tillie Gibson are members of the South Christian St Mennomte Church The church, in fact, is a big factor in the success of the local ENEP project. Mrs Gibson says that her seven volunteer leaders are all from the church, and the work would have been impossible without their efforts All the group’s meetings are held in the basement of the church. The young people named themselves the Good Use Club, after debating the merits of What’s Cookin’ in the Kitchen as a club moniker They meet once a week. During the meetings, they The official went on to say that the deficiencies were due largely to a manpower shortage in the inspection force. Because the inspectors alledgedly weren’t able to visit plants often enough, the USDA charged that some plants were operating under unsanitary conditions. In Lancaster County, there were no major deficiencies reported by the inspectors during the first week of inspection. A check with several smaller operators revealed no extreme actions taken by the inspectors. The proprietor of one two-man shop said he was visited on Monday by four different in spectors, and none had any complaints. Another meat store owner said that his inspector was flown in from lowa, he was a perfect gentleman, and he had no problems at all. Another small butcher said so far so good. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to stay in business,” we were told by another store owner. He has four full-time butchers and some part-time help. He was referring not to equipment, but to operating hours. The federal meat inspectors have the right to regulate hours of operation. We were told by the USDA's Washington office that the reason for this is that an unscrupulous processor can do anything when he’s operating while he knows he’s not going to be inspected. Meat inspectors stop working at 3:30 p.m. If they feel com pelled to stay in a plant after that time, regulations say that they may charge the plant a $9.36 per hour overtime fee USDA provides up to eight hours of free inspection, after 3:30, in dustry pays. The smaller operators felt this might be an unconscionable burden. In a two-man shop, for example, we were told by one proprietor that the inspector would be making more money than the shop owner and it just wouldn’t pay him to stay open. He felt he might lose customers and income because of this regulation. In a large plant, this fee hasn’t much of an effect on cost, because it is spread over a much larger output. go to the Weaver farm, near Strasburg, to tend their gardens. Because of rainy weather, they weren’t able to get into the gardens for several weeks at one point Weeds grew nearly out of control, and they faced a par ticularly dreary task of weeding. “One thing kids learn fast about gardening,” Mrs Gibson says. “They hate to weed.” On the first nice Tuesday after the rains, however, the Good Use members found a contingent of South Christian St. church members waiting for them. They all pitched in and the weeding was done in short order. “You might think we’d have a lot of problems with a group of kids from the inner city,” Mrs. Gibson says “But we don’t. We limit the ages from 13 to 19, and we let the kids discipline them selves. They do a pretty good job <jf it, too. Last week they kicked a boy clean out of the club for not behaving.” This fall the club hopes to move onto canmng and preserving their own produce, using the cooking facilities in the church basement. “We’ve done a lot of things, and we’re planning on doing even more But it just wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the church members, the Weavers, the volunteer leaders and Amie Lueck. You know, Anne’s here every Tuesday, working right along with the kids Field Day (Continued From Page 1) Carl Martin, Ephrata, took top honors in the men’s division with a score of 250, and Betty Kreider, Lancaster, topped the ladies’ division with a score of 233.4. Other winners, second through fifth place, in the men’s division were: David Longenecker, Oxford; Robert Mummau, East Petersburg; Glenn Hershey, New Holland, and Linford Weaver, Ephrata. Contestants placing second through fifth in the ladies’ division were: Linda Kreider, Quarryvdle; Mrs. John Groff,. Mt. Joy; Barbara Stauffer, Ephrata, and Mrs. Albert E. Fry, Manheim. In the youth division, second through fifth place winners were: Randy Hess, Strasburg; Rick Hess, Strasburg; Donald Weaver, New Holland, and Cheryl Bollinger, Lititz. Featured speaker for the af- Growing Vegetables "Beautiful Arnie” Lueck passing watermelon slices to fellow associate county agent, Jay Irwin, at last Tuesday’s ENEP picnic on Lloyd Weaver’s farm near Strasburg. and the volunteer leaders. The because they started calling him kids like, him, too. I know ‘Beautiful Arnie’ ”. Soybean they’ve got 75 acres planted to soybeans all double-cropped “We figure soybeans would be a good crop to follow barley, hay and wheat,” Amos Rutt says. “Last year we had a few acres and we took about 30 bushel an acre out of the field. We night’ve had 40 bushels but we couldn’t get all the beans.” Ken Rutt explained that last year’s crop had been planted by a custom operator before the land had been sufficiently worked. “We should have disced the land after it was plowed to smooth if out a little more. Some of the plants were growing out of the bottom of the furrows. The beans start growing a few inches from the ground, and you just can't combine them when they’re down in the furrows. ternoon was Ed Fry, from Chestertown, Md. Fry is one of 16 national directors of the Holstein- Freisian Association, and operates 1200 acre farm in Maryland. County Agent Max Smith talked to the groups about new government safety regulations, and about the need for larger manure holding facilities on dairy farms. Acreage “This year we worked the ground,” he noted. “And we’ve got our own combine, too ” The Rutt’s are aiming for 50 bushels an acre, this year, and they feel they’ve got a good chance of hitting their target “We’ve had a good start,” Ken says, “plenty of water, and we were able to get them in the ground so we’ll be harvesting around the middle of September, in time to beat the frost. And we know we’re going to get at least $3.00 a bushel.” How does one decide to double crop with soybeans, rather than with, say, 90nday com? One rule of-thumb the Rutts have adopted is this: If soybeans are selling for at least double the price of corn, then it pays to plant beans. Corn these days is about $1.25 per bushel, while soybeans are bringing $3.00. Labor and machinery costs for soybeans and shelled com are similar. Bean seed costs a bit more, but the Rutts say this in creased cost is more than made up for by the savings in fertilizer. They used 200 pounds of 0-25-25 per acre, which is about one quarter to one-fifth of what they’ve have used on corn. ■"V v Jr
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