Potato grower was innovator in his time
Hy-ludy Mitchell
Hrrk»( o. Reporter
I li KTW(X)I) Raymond
( Snvder. a retired ladngh
( minty farmer now 1U ing in
I leetwood 112. feels th.il
potato growing is nn area of
farming which has remained
too lon# in the shadows
Snyder would like lo see the
potato "get its Mice" of
public recognition, anti it
appears that the potato could
find no abler champion for
its cause than a man who has
tillQll tlte GRAIN BINS
Ulla|| mil mil WITH ADVANCED FEATURES
VB
Hwe sell, service and install
I
spent over hall a tentur) in
the busmen
Snyder, who itlheres to the
philosophv that a man is
never through learning."
Indiescs Hint at age /?, he
can now sav he knows 'a
little bit about potatoes "
Snyder began learning about
growing potatoes when he
was nine, working the fields
on the family farm with a
harrow and a team of horses
H> the time he was eleven he
was guiding the plow, but
Full Line Parts Dept
E. M. HERR EQUIPMENT, INC.
RDI, Willow Street, PA.
Sin drr sldl rr< .ill", fh.il w hrn
hr Imgan working thr held
hr wasn't men strong
enough to turn the rt)tu|>-
mrnt, and if hr didn f sr| if
straight the (ml ftmr hr
would have to rirrlr fhr
tntiro field and try again
When hr «;ii 77 vrnrs old.
Snyder derided lo makr
jmtito growing hit hfr' r .
work and took o\rr fhr
family farm, but onh. hr
adds, after much mn
sidcration "I had to make a
choice," he recalls now
'There wa.s a mortgage on
the farm still lo be paid, and
rn> father was a crippled
man " Although he’d never
made a dollar’s wages on the
farm, there were all the
years his parents and he had
already put into it to think
about. If he hadn’t decided to
stay with the farm, he says,
“aU that would have gone
down the dram."
Snyoer says that, ac-
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MENNO S. BEILER
R 1 Christiana, PA
Near Nine Points, PA
Brock has a long line of gram bins
that can keep you out ol those long
Lancaster Co.
tording to I.r. .«i!r j*itain
tint rr i lon -how (hr
hardest was lo in.ikr J
In mg ' White working (nr
his (athrr Sivdrr hail
loaded potalor- on Ixi* r.n
.ind workrd on road rmi
slrurlion during 'hr off
season and after hr |f«ok
ov rr thr (arm hr continued
to find wavs to supplrmrnl
thr imomr from hr. {iota to
irops Hr ran a .mall dam
operation lo put bread on
the table " Hr raised beef
cattle and swirr for a timr,
"lo fill in. and also for the
fertilizer " Hut Snyder nesrr
stopped learning about
potatoes and continued to
work towards making his
potato business go
And make it go he did
Young Snyder was obviously
an innovator in his time, a
brash young man who, as he
recalls, his older neighbors
gave a year to go under
“But they lived to see me
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Raymond C Snyder. Fleetwood, checks quality
and yield of the green mountain variety potatoes,
which he is testing for his son, Lee, who now
operates the family potato farms in Lehigh County
make it,” he says with a
smile Snyder had already
incorporated the new spray
programs being promoted to
combat potato diseases
while working for his father.
He recalls that he had a pb
convincing his father to try
the sprays, which also
required investment in new
equipment; but when he was
sure Raymond was willing
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•if
and able to do the work
himself, the elder Snyder
finally consented. Within
four years of farming on his
own, Snyder averaged over
400 bushels of potatoes per
acre for which he was
awarded membership in the
Pennsylvania Potato
Growers Association 400-
Bushel Club
In 1941, Snyder made the
news again when he installed
a pond and irrigation
system, the first of its kind in
the area. According to the
old newspaper clippings
Mrs. Snyder has preserved
in a scrapbook, the irrigation
system, which could match
IVi inches of rainfall in one
hour, was the talk of the
town. But Snyder recalls the
ribbing he took from friends
and neighbors because “the
first year I was ready to
irrigate, it really rained.”
Before turning the
business over to his only son,
Lee, 11 years ago, Snyder
had purchased two more
farms, added three more
ponds, built a 50 by 112 foot,
temperature and humidity
controlled storage building
(another first in the area),
and had progressed to
machine harvesting.
Although he claims he’s
been retired 11 years now,
Snyder admits that “when
you have worked all your life
to build something, you can’t
just turn your back on it. It’s
kind of m the blood.”
In keeping with his basic
philosophy, Snyder is still
learning about potatoes.
Although he says he grew
mainly russets in his day, the
tried and true standby at
that time, he eventually
began to follow the results of
experimental test plots at
such institutions as Penn
State University, and “if I
saw somthing that looked
good, I tried it.” Now Snyder
does the testing himself,
planting new varieties that
interest him in two potato
patches, one at the family
farms in Lehigh County and
another behind his home ir
Fleetwood.
I Continued on Page 68|
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