36—Lancaster Farming. Saturday. July 26, 1975
Penn-Jersey prepares Midwest tour
By: Dieter Krieg
O’Hare International
Airport, the first stop on a
tour taken by Penn-Jersey
Harvesters representatives
on July 9, is a city in itself.
Complete with multi-level
ribbons of superhighways
that snake their way to and
through the huge complex, it
is known as the world’s
busiest airport - ap
proximately 3,000 flights per
day.
Modern hotels, terminals
and parking garages spring
up out of the flat expanses of
northern Illinois terrain.
There’s bumper-to-bumper
traffic on the highways;
rows of buses and taxis, not
to mention thousands of
people and several hundred
airplanes ranging in size
from a Piper Cub to huge
jumbo jets.
The occasion for the
Harvestore tour was two
fold: The A.O. Smith
Company, manufacturers of
the familiar blue Harvestore
silos, recently opened the
doors to a new all-electric
plant which covers more
than nine acres of America’s
“heartland.” Nearby is the
site for the 1975 Midwest
Farm Progress Show,
considered to be the largest
of its kind in the world.
Penn-Jersey Harvestore of
New Holland is making plans
to charter jet transportation
to the big show, and was pre
viewing the site. The
show is scheduled for late
September and will feature
all kinds of agricultural
machinery in action. Far
mers and agri-businessmen
who wish to join the Midwest
tour this fall may make their
reservations now by calling
Penn-Jersey Harvestore.
After arrival at Chicago’s
O’Hare airport - only 90
minutes away from
Harrisburg by jet - the group
drove by car to Dekalb,
Illinois, the home of the new
Harvestore manufacturing
plant.
Harvestore’s new plant
draws most of it’s energy
from the area’s nuclear
power companies. There’s a
direct high-tension line
leading right into it. And for
good reason. The new
facility depends entirely on
electricity to run the fur-
James Willrett. right, talks with, left to right:
Frank Possesski, Narvon, Joe Kelly, western
regional sales manager for Harvestore, and
Charles Enloe, of Penn Jersey Harvestore
The James Willrett Farm, near OeKalb, Illinois, will be the site of the Midwest Farm Progress Show,
naces, motors, and lights.
The cost of this energy
requirement is $lOO,OOO per
month.
Features of the new 298,500
square-foot plant include a
million - dollar press which
exerts up to 2,500 tons of
pressure to stamp the plates
used in making the blue
silos. A bolt machine turns -
out bolts at the rate of 6,300
per hour. The 1 electric fur
naces fire up to a tem
perature of around 1,600
degrees Fahrenheit. Staring
through it from a good
distance, yet still close
enough to feel the heat, one
observer noted “You’d get a
suntan in a hurry if you
decided to streak through
there.”
When in full operation, the
new facility will turn out two
new Harvestore silos per
hour, and use up 1,500
gallons of the company’s
unique glass-coating flor
mula in less than six hours.
Electronically - controlled
billed as the greatest on Earth.
Frank Possessky, standing 6 feet 3 inches tall, is
dwarfed by Illinois corn on July 9, 1975.
worlds leading ■
manufacturer i
of automated
IBBSlHfifll feeding systems, i
Penn Jersey Harvestore
P 0 Box 91
New Holland. PA 17557
Please send me: J
□ The 1975 Harvestore Buyer’s Guide J
Name
Address
Town
County
State
“guns” spray the glass
coating on to sterile, elec
trically - charged sheets of
steel. Later the metal plates
proceed through the furnace
where the glass coating is
permanently fused with the
steel. This is also the time
when the grey-blue color
turns to the characteristic
blue. “It’s the cobalt in the
powdered - glass mixture
which gives it the color,”
explained Charles Enloe,
who heads Penn-Jersey
Harvestore.
“There’s not many people
working in the plant,” one
visitor commented. Another
responded: “Machines don’t
talk back or go on strike.”
Considering the size of the
factory, there were only a
handful of people working,
and once the plant is in full
operation, only ap
proximately 300 people will
man the monstrous
machines and furnaces.
After lunch in down-town
Visitors in the Harvester plant are dwarfed by
the million dollar press, capable of exerting 2,500
tons of pressure.
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DeKalb, served by
waitresses dressed in
colonial costumes, the group
proceeded to the Farm
Progress Show site.
Travelling mostly on
straight, flat country roads,
we were surrounded by tall
corn and bushy soybeans
that stretched as far as the
eye could see. Although it
was only the ninth of July,
some of the corn was eight
feet tall already. James
Willrett, owner of a 1,400 -
head beef cattle operation,
noted that “things have
never looked better for this
time of year.”' Hopes for
bumper crops and lower
cattle feeding prices were
high.
Willrett’s 1,150 acre farm
will be the site for the two
day Farm Progress Show on
September 30 and October 1.
He has kept all of his beef
cattle in total confinement on
slatted floors for the past ten
years and averages about
two and a half pounds of gam
per animal per day.
The 60 by 225 foot bam
allows for 18 square feet of
space per animal and has a
capacity of 550 head.
Numerous fans provide
ventilation. A cluster of nine
Harvestore silos provide
feed. The ninth one was just
built last month, with the
inscription: “50,000 th
Harvestore Silo, built June
11, 1975.”
Willrett, a friendly, tanned
individual feeds his cattle on
corn silage and high
moisture corn and figures
eight pounds of feed to be
equivalent to one pound of
gain on a 90 percent air-dried
basis. As is, the feed to gain
ratio is 12:1.
Manure storage below the
building has a capacity of
five months, although
Willrett pumps it out more
frequently.
Most farms in northern
Illinois appeared to be very
well taken care of. But there
were no dairy farms. Here
and there the visitor could
see the remains of a dairy
barn and bam yard. Close to
town there were abandoned
barns with sagging roofs and
broken windows. Urban
sprawl was evident in
Illinois, as it is most
anywhere.