Voi. 19 No. 26
r±andis Weaver, kneeling, marks a stake to guide the
operator installingcropland terraces on his farm near
Tayloria’ in southem Lancaster County. Helping him
with the alignment is Frank Harratine, a civil
engineering technician with the Lebanon County area
office of the USDA’s Spit Conservation Service.
.•< * m m * * * m. a a.a t.>Vt*«%VIVAV/iV>V>VtVAVaVi
FARM
Wee^Wnrtng
Alfalfa weevils are out in force this year, and some
local farmers aren’t even aware they’ve got a
problem, we were told Thursday by Don Robinson,
young farmer advisor at Garden Spot High School.
“There’s a tremendous amount of weevil around
I Continued on Page 7]
120 At FFA
Leaders ’ Meet
About 120 FFA officers
from Lancaster County
chapters gathered Thursday
afternoon at Solanco High
School for their annual
leadership training con
ference. All were newly
elected to their offices, and
they went to Solanco to hone
their leadership skills.
Prizes awarded at the
close of the conference went
to a trio of youths who placed
highest in die creed contests,
and the two highest winners
in the quiz contest. Steve
Hershey, Maheim, took first
place creed honors, while
second place went to Ber
nadine Gish, Elizabethtown,
and third went to Ray Stark
of Penn Manor.
Curtis Martin, Ephrata,
took first place in the quiz
contest, with John Wyler,
also of Ephrata, placing
second. "
Horiorary Keystone
Farmer degrees were
presented after the con-
by Dick
Wanner
ference to Carl Graybill, a
vo-ag teacher at Ephrata,
and to Robert Bucher, farm
loan officer at Com
monwealth National Bank.
And, during the con
ference, the county Red Rose
Chapter officers for the
coming year were installed.
The officers are: Barry
Wissler, Ephrata, president;
Donald Weaver, New
Holland, vice-president;
Brian Ober, Brownstown Vo-
Tech, corresponding
secretary; Robert Buck
waiter, Penn Manor, sen
tinel; Jeff Glackin, Solanco,
recording secretary; Nelson
Martin, Pequea, chaplain;
Kevin Rohrer, Manheim,
reporter; Dwight Martin,
Elizabethtown, parlimen
tanan; Dwight Houser,
Lampeter - Strasburg,
treasurer.
installed as advisors were
J, W. Hilton, Penn Manor, J.
Phillips, Pequea Valley, and
J. Kerr, Brownstown Vo-
Tech.
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, May 11, 1974
•andis Weaver, Conservation Case History . . .
Area Farmer Picks
Tile Line Over Sod
As more and more farmers face the need to adopt con
servation practices on their land, they will be looking for ever
more efficient ways to farm with conservation. A tile line to
carry runoff water away from cropland terraces is one
method that’s being tried this year for the first time by a
southern Lancaster County farmer.
Landis Weaver, Tayloria, is the first farmer in this area to
install file tile lines, which have been used extensively
throughout the Midwest. “These files will do the same job as
'a sod waterway,” Weaver explained this week on his farm,
“but I won’t have any of the problems you get with a
waterway. Waterways can be hard to establish, and once
they’re going you’ve got to manage them right. “For
example, say I’d have a field in corn, and I had cropland
terraces and a waterway. If I sprayed the corn with weed
killer, and if we got a heavy rain right after I sprayed, all the
weed killer could go onto my waterway and kill the grass. I'd
have to start all over.”
Weaver decided to install the tile after discussing the
practice with Abner Houseknecht and Frank .Havatine.
Houseknecht is recently retired from the Lancaster County
SCS office and is now employgi by .the county as a con
servation technician. Harvatine is ir dvil enginerrmg
technician working out of the Lebanon area office of the SCS.
Houseknect and Harvatine workedtogether on designing the
system for Weaver.
Weaver has been farming with contour strips on his 172
acres for the past eight years. He decided this year to install
In This Issue
FARM CALENDAR 10
Markets 2-4
Sale Register 39
Farmers Almanac 6
Classified Ads 41
Editorials 10
Homestead Notes 26
Home on the Range 29
Organic Living 18
Thoughts in Passing 9
4-H Calendar 19
Farm Women Calendar 28
Growing Degree Days 34
Custom Machinery Rates 23
Newly elected officers of Lancaster County's FFA
chapters met Thursday afternoon at Solanco High
School for their annual spring leadership training
conference. At the close of the conference, prizes
Fulton Grange Members
Celebrate 100th Year
Over 250 members, guests
and dignitaries turned out
for the gala centennial
celebration of the Fulton
Grange last Saturday night
at the Fulton Grange Hall in
Oakryn.
After an opening song and
an invocation by chaplain
Gyles Brown, the assembled
guests heard greetings from
cropland terraces because, as said, “The government’s
going to make everybody do it sooner or later, anyway. I
uunK my investment will pay for itself, though, in the long
run. It’ll help me keep the topsoil where it is, instead of down
in the stream.”
The tile which went into the Weaver farm are six-inch
corrugated plastic. The lightweight material comes in big
rolls, and is simply laid into a trench, three feet deep in
Weaver’s case. Perforations in the tile allow water to enter
through its entire length, so that it’s constantly draining
water away from wet spots. Galvanized risers, installed at
the lowest point behind each cropland terrace,feed water
from heavy rains directly into the tile, so that during maxium
rainfall, the line may be running full forse. The risers are
perforated, too, and are also open at the top. They stick two to
three feet out of the ground.
After the tile is laid in the trench, it is simply covered over.
The pressure of the soil which surrounds it gives the tile
strength enough to bear the weight of heavy tractors and
other field equipment. Weaver’s tiles were installed using a
rented backhoe.
Installing a tile line isn’t cheap. Weaver pointed out. “It
cost me 50-cents a foot just for the material, plus the cost of
the risers, the tees and the bells. And I had to pay $9OO for the
backhoe. That comes to a pretty good price for 2400-feet of
tile. But it will last indefinitely, and it gets my fields into
i Continued on Pago t]
Fulton Grange Master
Charles G. McSparran,
followed by an address by
National Master John W.
Scott. State Master A.
Wayne Readinger also
spoke. Among the listeners
were state senator Richard
Snyder and state Grange
Overseer Clifford
Tinkelpaugh.
were awarded to the winners of the creed and quiz
contests. Winners shown here are, left to right,
Steve Hershey, Ray Stark, Curtis Martin, Bernadine
Gish and John Wyler.
$2.00 Per Year
Following the opening
ceremonies, guests settled
down to a long anniversary
pagent, “100 Years With
Fulton Grange”.
In 10 different scenes,
Grange members acted out
the story of their
organization, from its
beginning as an item of
[Continued on Page 4]