16—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 2. 1972
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From tocol Ao Teachers:
The article for this week was
prepared by Clifford Grube,
teacher of agriculture at War
wick High School.
This Fall on several occasions
absolute strangers drove in our
lane and inquired as to whether
we would sell any building lots. 1
was a bit surprised since I’m not
exactly in the real estate
business, and the answer was a
quick “no”. It does make one
think, though, and after a less
than-bountiful year, that money
would have come in handy.
Many farmers are faced with
the same situation. Some sell,
some don’t I believe that for the
benefit of your operation and the
farming community in general,
you should not sell. My
argument, I realize, is weak
when challenged by a farmer
with a desk full of unpaid bills;
however, one who stays solvent
by selling land is a realtor and is
farming only as a pastime.
Previous to teaching at War
wick, I was farming in Bucks
County and saw some interesting
events take place in a matter of a
GAS RANGE
SALE
1973 HARDWICK RANGES
\ .
•DIGITAL CLOCK FILL OUT AND
• CONTINUOUS CLEAN / mail THIS 1
• FLUORESCENT LIGHT M \
• GLASS OVEN DOOR M COUPON A
• LIGHT IN OVEN M TODAY AND ■
•HI LO BURNERS B UUH ■
•SELECT FROM A FREE M
4 COLORS GIFT J
NAME - -
ADDRESS - „
PHONE
I AM INTERESTED IN A NEW 1973
HARDWICK GAS RANGE.
MY PRESENT RANGE IS
YEARS OLD.
SPECIAL PRIZE TO OLDEST
RANGE REGISTERED
BUY NOW AND SAVE
Box 210, Rte. 222
Ephrato, Pa. 17522
UGITE GAS. INC. r '
m
Thoughts
in Passing
Clifford Grube
few short years, ’the community
was basically agricultural with
no heavy industry but was within
25 miles of Philadelphia. Things
were fairly stationary and had
been for quite some time. Sud
denly, a few farms were sold to
developers and up very quickly
went ranchers and splitlevels.
Now this was not urban sprawl,
this was urban jump. Suburbia
had jumped 10 miles of coun
tryside only to settle in my
township which, as far as I could
see, had little to offer. The
developer had purchased the land
cheaply and knew that 25 miles
was not too far to commute to
work.
These new residents, I
discovered, were not big city
people, but suburbanites who
wanted a more rural suburbia.
More farms were lost and more
houses sprang up in their place,
and t still can’t figure out where
all the people came from.
Now tilings began to change m
addition to the landscape. Most of
these new residents were
educated people with good jobs
and were eager to get involved in
making our community a
“better” place to live. They
demanded sewer and water,
bigger and better schools, faster
clearing of snow in the winter,
and finally, a police department.
Instead of taxes for the farmer
going down, they went up. They
went up to the point where we
would have to be getting $5 per
bushel of com to make a profit.
They enacted zoning to prohibit
hog enterprises from being
started or even resumed after a
period of no-profit pork prices.
You actually risked your life to
transport farm machinery on the
roads, and to top it off, the new
.policeman tried to give me a
ticket for towing an elevator
through town behind the pickup.
What may seem to be liquid
gold to the farmer who is
spreading it on his com stubble
may not be appreciated by your
new neighbors. The air being
discharged from that new con
trolled-environment poultry or
hog building may be offensive
too. Public pressure has been
known to force farmers out of
business even though the farm
was there first. Many fanners
who are farming lands bordering
on towns or developments tell me
of refuse thrown into their fields,
trails made through small grain
fields by (he great invention, the
minibike, cornfields pre
harvested before the picker, and
on and on. These are the things
that must be considered before
selling building lots off your
farm.
How can you be sure now that
you won’t be sorry 10 years from
now? As entire farms go into
development, we see the whole
community change as I described
before. It is no longer
agricultural, and farmers
become less and less important.
If you were operating a snowplow
for the township and you had 50
people calling up hourly
demanding that their street be
plowed open, you, too, would
probably go there first to shut
them up even though a milk truck
may not be able to get down a
rural road to serve one fanner.
Let’s face it, Mr. Farmer, you’re
going to have to take a back seat
unless you’re willing to stand up,
speak, and be heard. Get in
volved in your community
planning, zoning, township
supervision, etc. If you don’t look
after your own interests, no one
else will. How many merchants
make their livlihood by supplying
farmers? They’re going to go too.
Community planning is being
given a lot of attention lately.
There are dozens of recognized
concepts from recreational cores
to concentric rings which consist
of belts of suburbia separated by
strips of unhappy farmers. All of
these systems are alike in that
they provide open spqce areas for
the appreciation of ah. Suddenly
people have become aware of
good old Mother Nature, or better
put, the environment. People
want to escape from the concrete
city to buy look-alike houses on
half acre lots. Human nature is
funny. People want to have their
cake and eat it too. They want to
move to the country, but have the
conveniences of the city. The best
example of this new breed is the
camper who hits the highway for
a weekend with Mother Nature
pulling his $lO,OOO air-conditioned
compact house.
I want you to imagine a fic
titious situation, which, if it is
similar to a real situation, is
purely coincidental. A small town
exists surrounded by farmland. A
developer buys a 100 acre farm a
few miles from town with con
siderable road frontage and
begins to subdivide it into half
acre lots. Full acre lots would be
much too large because the
purchaser would have to spend
all Saturday afternoon mowing
the lawn and might miss a
football game on TV. So, half
acre lots it is. Besides, more lots
can be sold, and each is equipped
with a well and a septic system.
After a few years, there is some
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