VOL. 18 No. 17
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Armstrong, with their son Kevin, are
shown in a grass waterway on their Liberty Square farm. The
Armstrongs received the Outstanding Cooperator award
Tuesday night from the Lancaster County Conservation
District.
Armstrongs Hailed
By Conservationists
The farm that conservationists
dream about is for sale. It’s in
southern Lancaster County’s
Liberty Square, and it’s owned by
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Armstrong.
Proof that the farm is an ex
cellent example of conservation
at work is the fact'that the Arm
strongs received the Lancaster
County Conservation District’s
Outstanding Cooperator award
for 1973. The award, in the form
of a framed aerial photograph of
the farm taken by Grant
Heilman, was presented to the
Armstrongs on Tuesday night at
the annual Conservation District
banquet in Mt. Joy.
The farm, which Armstrong
operated actively until the end of
last year, has been in his family
for three generations. After 17
busy years as a farmer, Arm
strong has decided it’s time for a
Farm Calendar
Saturday, March 17
9 a m. - 3 p.m. Ayrshire Barn
meeting, Jim Martin farm,
Stevens
Pennsylvania Yorkshire
Cooperative Association Inc.
Invitational Show and Sale,
Farm Show Building,
Harrisburg; Show, 10 a.m.;
Sale. 1 p.m.
Joint State Conservation Com
mission and State Association
of Conservation District
Directors Inc. meeting, State
College.
(Continued on Page 21)
Lueutn Vumliif Photo
change. And when Bob Arm
strong makes up his mind, he
makes up his mind.
He made up his mind in 1962 to
install conservation practices on
his farm. He started with contour
strips. When the county Soil and
Conservation Service advised
him to keep much of his hilly land
in grass or else put in diversion
terraces and waterways, he
made up his mind to go all the
way.
It took five years to finish the
terraces and waterways, but
Armstrong feels it was well worth
the effort. Last year, out of 90
tillable acres, he had over 70
acres in corn. While floods and
torrential rains were washing
away farms all over the Nor
theast. the Armstrongs were
merely seeing more water in
their sod waterways. Clear
water.
Conservation not only saved
Armstrong’s soil, it enabled him
to grow more corn. He had been
raising 600 to 800 market hogs a
vear. and there were good
financial reasons for growing all
the corn he could.
Four acres in sod waterways
are not wasted acres, either,
Armstrong notes. Every year, he
gets a good crop of hay, “Very
good horse* hay,” he says, from
his waterways. And the crop gets
better every year.
Armstrong now feels that he’s
faced the challenges of farming,
Continued on Page 25)
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 17, 1973
Use Value Assessment
For Farms Examined
Taxing farmland on the basis of
its value for production
agriculture is unconstitutional
now in Pennsylvania. This could
change, though, after the May 15
primary ballot if Commonwealth
voters approve a referendum
which would amend the con
stitution
Should the referencum pass,
the state legislature will be
empowered to pass laws allowing
municipalities to grant
preferential tax treatment to
agricultural land Area farmers
have been asking how this could
affect them, and learned about
some of the possibilities at a
meeting Wednesday night at the
Farm and Home Center
The educational meeting,
sponsored by the Farm and
Home Foundation, attracted
several hundred farmers, en
vironmentalists and government
officials. It was the most sue
“Farmers are luckier, in a
way. than most industries,”
Roger ' Grout told an animal
waste seminar oh Tuesday at the
Farm and Home Center. “A
farmer can recycle his biggest
waste product, marture, simply
by spreading it in his fields.”
Grout, from the Penn State
Extension Service, was the main
speaker for the seminar,Spon
sored by Zimmerman Industries,
Inc., Ephrata Rl. His comments
dealt chiefly with liquid manure
handling systems.
“The trend today is towards
putting a lot of animals in one
Two farmers stopped to chat by a cross
section of a liquid manure storage pit
displayed outside the Farm and Home
Farmer Seminar Studies
Liquid Manure Systems
eessful such meeting yet con
ducted by the Foundation
The group listened attentively
to Dr Donald J Epp, a Penn
State agricultural economist,
who reported on a study he had
made of the effects of use value
assessment in other states, and
its possible effects m Penn
sylvania
Epp pointed out that the
referendum will only decide the
constitutional issue It will not
determine the statutes which
could be implemented as a result
of the vote The state legislature
would have to hammer out the
laws and so far as Epp knows, no
legislative bodies have yet
started to think about the kind of
laws that might be passed
The breaks could go either way
for farmers in Lancaster County
if agriculture land is to be
assessed on its use rather than its
market value
place.” Grout noted. “In dairy
operations, this means we’ve got
to contend with waste water from
washing operations as well as
animal wastes. We somehow
have to control these wastes to
prevent pollution, and to
preserve the soil nutrients that
are in manure.”
Grout suggested that the best
way to solve manure problems
especially in free-stall dairying
operations, is to mix it with the
wastewater, store as a liquid and
spread it when the soil is active
The most practical method
locally for storing liquid manure
An assessment program that
considers soil types and a farm’s
proximity to agricultural
markets could raise faxes on
cnuntv farms an average of $1 000
i farm according to Rpp
“While taxes would increase
immediately on some farms that
increase would look small when
compared to a (ax rate based on
the farm's potential value for
development ” Rpp said
Lancaster was one of eight
counties selected lor his study
In Rucks and Chester counties
were recent reassessments have
taken farm taxes up as much as
too per cent the study showed
taxes would be reduced on nearly
cverv farm
Dr Rpp said an agricultural
use assessment would benefit
farmers more in future years as
each new reassessment is made
lie noted that m New Jersey
would appear to be deep storage
pits, according to Grout These
pits can be located directly below
barns with slatted floors, an
arrangement which is used
mostly in close confinement beef
operations
Storage pits for free stall dairy
hams are usually located outside
(he barn The barns are cleaned
frequently, and the waste is
pushed directly into the pits with
scrapers
Farmers with stanchion barns
might also be able to use a liquid
manure storage system. Here,
(Continued on Page 20)
Center during Tuesday’s animal waste
seminar.
$2.00 Per Year
(ContinuedOn Page 13)
Lancaster Farming Photo