VOL. 24 No.jft /£
Fields feel brunt of Winter storm
ByKENDACE BORRY
LTEETZ Erosion, that ever-present'
enemy of ail farmers seemed to be the
biggest concern of farmers after the
- rainfall and flash floods of this past week.
Farmers all over the Lancaster Far
ming area told of more inconveniences
caused by the heavy rains' and high
waters, but whennaming theprobjemthat
most resulted from the wet weather, the
' answer came again and again, erosion.
The waters which flooded and lay in the
fields (hi Wednesday didn’t stay long
enough to damage crops, farmers and
Extension county agents in the area
agreed.
As Jay Irwin, Lancaster County Ex
tension Service, said, thewaterjustwasn’t
on that long. He 'that the ’Winter
wheat : and hay would not'have been hurt
very much Tat all. .He did mention that -■
seme barley fields. if in a low lying spot,
where the waterwbirid lie on the field for a
Jong'period of tuheror tiirn ihtb ice, the -;
-hg^eyseedmightbedamaged.
Trvnh thought that there wouldn’t he too -■
much damage to crops at this time of the
year because most are in a dormant stage/
and the damage potential would he ajot ;
less
the '
From York County, iahn Smith, county -
Huy abundant,
prices stable
until Spring
LITITZ The general agreement ,
among hay dealers is that there is plenty Of,
hay around, and hay prices are not ex
pected to go much higher this Winter.
According to Robert Frame, manager of.
Vintage Sales Stables, “any time cattle Is
cheap, hay and straw is high priced.” He
explained that the reverse is also true.
Frame said “the only hay that will stay
high is the real good quality hay.” He felt,
that “we’ve seen all we’re going to see” in’’
the way of prices. “They have a lot of hay
on hand upstate” he added.
Norman Kolb of New Holland Sales,
Stables, said “there is a fair supply of hay
around. I would lode for the market to stay
about steady through the Spring.” He said
“hay was high last year because the South
was dry. This year we have had good
weather all around. Even the local people
don’t have to buy hay” he added.
“Straw hpd an unusual Fall” Kolb
continued, “Fanners baled a lot of fodder
and now we have more straw on hand.”
“Straw sales are still good, considering the,
fodder” he said. Kolb attributed the price
differences in hay and straw to quality.
The bottom price for hay is usually $45 a
ton. This hay will be used for mulch.
Moore also has some tips, on how-farmers might make an extra 20 cents per bushel of corn sold. See page 103
Very good future seen for cattlemen
By DIETER KREEG
LANCASTER - Cat-
tlemen can look forward to a
very good year, according to
Penn State’s agricultural
economist H. Louis Moore.
Moore, who has an in
formative and entertaining
Serving The Central Ond Southeastern Pennsyl
style that’s uniquely his own,
was' one of the featured
/
speakers at the Lancaster
County Cattlemen’s Day. He
predicts good prices in all
phases of the industry, and
bases thatopinion on low
agent, and several farmers reported that
they did not know of any fanners who were
flooded out really bad. They thought that
water may have gotten into a fevr barns,
but .their major concern with the gully
erosion that was evident in uncovered
fields.
-They told that the ground on the surface
cattle numbers aad
reasonable feed prices.
Moore’s- optimismitic
report comes on top of
record-setting prices that
are already being recorded
at area sale terns. Ac
cording to the easy-to-listen
f von/o Areas - Also Maryland, New Jersey and Delaware
Lancaster Famine, Saturday, January 27,1979
of the fields had thawed, while that un
derneath stayed solid. As a result,instead
of being absorbed the rain ran off the
fields, washing the thawed ground along.
From Chester County, Glenn- Shirk,
county agent, said that in his county,
because of the frozen gound, they too had
less absorbtiqn and more runoff. He
to Moore, feeders will
command the most ad
vantageous prices. Cull cow
prices will also be very
favorable, andmay, in fact,
outstrip fed cattle prices at
times. The reason for that,
explains Moore, is that there
thought that surface applied lime and
fertilizer, pjut on this past Fall, might have
had slight losses due to the washoff, but
didn’t think the problem was a serious one.
He imagined that some barns “got wet”
but thought that classified as more of a
nuisance than anything else. '
He thought the word inconvenience
summed up the whole effect of the
weather, for he noted that unlike last year,
when many chickens were lost, due to
water backing up, he had heard of no such
Incidences this year. He believed there
would be little financial loss in livestock or
wet grain.
The other loss he did mention was the
fact that the water could not get into the
ground where it could do some good.
Berks County farmers too talked of the
soil erosion, telling of gullies that they had
seen in fields. Jim Haldeman, county
agent, echoed.their thoughts, calling some
of the erosion problems “fairly serious” -
but noted that there hadn’t been too much
property or livestock damage because of
the storm.
Warpen Archibald, district con
servatu||p|j|CT the Soil Conservation
_he saw evidence of
erosion, especially on
’ ' “'"’fTßrntoPaie4o)
Vegetable
meeting slated
for Feb, 5-7
HERSHEY The 1979 Pennsylvania
Vegetable Conference and Trade show will
be held February 6,7, and 8, at the Her
shey Motor Lodge and Convention Center,
Hershey. Highlight of the conference will
be the speech of USDA Secretary of
AGriculture Robert Bergland, who will
address the group on Wednesday.
Tuesday will be Processing Tomato
Day, with topics such as the factors in
fluencing herbicide performance, what’s
new in tomato varieties, and diseases in
tomato transplants being discussed among
many others.
Dining the lunch, Cindy Lesser, the 1978
Milton Tomato Harvest Festival Queen,
will present tomato awards.
Wednesday is general vegetable day,
with problems in dry beans, smap beans,
cabbage, sweet com, muskmelon, pum
pkins, Winter squash, eggplant, pepper,
and celery covered as well as talks given
on new varieties of plants and drip
irrigation, to mention some of the day’s
activities.
The Hon. Robert Bergland, secretary,
USDA, will speak Wednesday morning,
advising the growers on the United States
(Turn to Page 40)
is likely to be a 25 per cent
drop in cull cow numbers,
compared to a year ago.
Moore sees fed cattle
slaughterings as going up
two to three per cent this
year. Non-fed steer and
heifer slaughter will be up 50
$6.00 Per Year
per cent, he says, and cow
slaughter may drop by 25 per
cent. He sees total slaughter
as going down by five per
cent.
Overviewing the statistics,
tiie Penn State economist
(Turn to P«ge36)