VOL 2tHo. 9
Lester Nolt surveys the damage done to his chicken house by a freak wind.
The gust struck at 3:30 a.m. Christmas Day. lifting the roof of the building and
setting it down about 200 feet away. Notice the stack of straw that was not
disturbed. More pictures on page 33.
Wind deals big blow
to Manheim farmer
BY SftEELA MILLER
MANHEIM - A freak
wind storm wrecked an old
chicken house and damaged
several other buildings
during the night on
Christmas morning. Lester
Nolt, of R 1 Manheim, suf
fered the worst damage
from the storm.
Nolt told LANCASTER
FARMING he couldn’t
believe his eyes when he got
up Christmas morning and
saw the damage that had
occurred during the mght.
The first thing he noticed
was that the com bam doors
had been blown open. When
he looked out in the small
gram strip behind the bam.
Tobacco buyers fought
for this year’s crop
BY DEBRA STRICKLER
UTITZ This year’s
tobacco buying market can
be simply described as
“crazy.”
Never in buying history
has the tobacco price
jumped a nickel in a single
bound.
Even more amazing, the
price jumped a nickel twice
m one week.
The tobacco market
opened on December 11 with
In this issue
Editorials 10
Valley Animal Hospital 16
Gasohol meeting 34
Gram storage loans 38
Joyce Bupp’s column 42
Farm Talk 43
Countryside indoors 82
Home on the range 88
p 79 Picture review 96
franklin Cty. top herd 100
Montgomery Co. DHIA 115
Cumberland Co. DHIA 120
u auphm County DHIA 122
he saw a heap of trash in the
field.
Nolt said that he didn’t
realize where the pile of
rubble had come from until
he looked at his cinder block
chicken house.
The walls of the house
w£re gone, along with the
roof. One wall had been
pushed onto the shed’s floor,
while the other wall was
pushed over into the field.
The roof of the building had
been carried about 200 feet
into an adjacent strip of com
stalks.
The glass panes in the
windows of the chicken
house were for the most part
intact. And a stack of straw
most buyers offering 65
cents a pound, two cents
above last year’s average.
Little tobacco moved at this
price.
Since the tobacco was
weighing lighter than last
year’s crop, many producers
were determined to keep
their crop until the price
reached 70 cents.
A week later on December
18, the price inflated to 70
cents.
The sudden five cent price
increase suprised area
growers. Many decided to
sell their crop, while others
were determined to hold on,
waiting for another price
increase.
Last Friday, two com
panies, Lorillards and Bloch
Brothers entered the market
at 75 cents.
There was a great demand
for top quality tobacco this
year. As a result, most of the
other buyers followed suit,
(Turn to i J age 19)
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 29,1979
remained standing without a
bale out of place.
TheNolfs garage also was
damaged. The roof was
lifted in the southwest
comer, but it was not taken
off.
With all of the noise and
commotion going on in the
night, Nolt said that he did
wake up and look out. But,
when he looked at a neigh
bor’s trailer and saw that it
was allright, he went back to
sleep.
“It was a pretty strong
wind,’’said Nolt. “We can
just be grateful that nothing
worse happened.” The Nolt’s
have 100 hogs in the bottom
floor of the chicken house,
and they weren’t even
scratched.
Several years ago, Nolt
went to Indiana with his
church to help clean up after
the tornados and storms hit
the Midwest farmers. “This
time it just hit a little closer
home,” he said.
Local egg production levels off
BY DICK WANNER
LITITZ After two years
of climbing, the egg business
in Southeastern Penn
sylvania has hit a plateau.'
’ Few-new layer houses are
being built-right now, and
two ag lenders report that
their requests for layer
financing have dropped
dramatically in the last
three to six months.
"The egg price hasn’t been
too smart lately,” said Carl
Brown, head of Lancaster’s
Farm Credit office.
“Building costs are up
tremendously compared to
three or four years ago, and
pullets cost $2.25 apiece”.
Farmer-Trail dispute
reopens on Thursday
BY CURT HAULER
CARLISLE Farmers
and outdoorsmen Thursday
night will meet here in
another attempt to iron out a
compromise in the Cum
berland Valley’s hottest land
use fight.
At stake on the one hand
are several hundred acres of
prime Cumberland County
farmland.
On the other hand is the
future of the internationally
famous Appalachian Trail
which winds its way from
Maine to Georgia. About 12
miles of trail run through the
Cumberland Valley
following h|gjiways from
above New Kingston south to
- thejtpflmg Sotings area.
■' Ihif'tße springs aren’t the
only things boiling in the
Valley today landowners,
and especially farmers,
don’t want to see prime land
taken so the trail can be
moved off the highways.
The National Park Service
and the Appalachian Trail
Conference both want to
move the trail off the roads
and into an appropriately
scemc and non-urbamzed
setting.
At the Thursday meeting
the two sides once again will
try to establish a common
ground, to reach a com
promise acceptable to the
landowners and to the
Department of the Interior.
The meeting will be held
on the second floor of the
New Courthouse m Carlisle,
January 3, at 7 p.m.
The 12 mile section of trail
in the Valley is just one,
portion of a $9O million three
year project by the
Department of Interior’s
National Park Service- to
relocate the trail.
As costs rise, profits shrink
New layer housing costs
about $7 per bird.
“If afarmer borrows at 14-
percent for a 60,000 bird
• house, the interest alone will
- cost him nearly a dollar per
bird per year. And if he
borrows another $135,000 to
put in his pullets, he’s going
. to be doing a lot of work
' before he makes any money
for himself,” Brown said.
One problem Brown sees is
budding costs going up at the
rate of 10- to 20-percent per
year, but the prices for eggs
and broilers aren’t in
creasing nearly that fast.
As prices lag behind costs,
profit margins are eaten
In Cumberland Valley
The concept and funds
were approved by the
Congress in the Scenic Trails
Act.
The Cumberland Valley
section was one of the first
areas tackled by the
National Park Service. And
it has proved to foe one of the
toughest. ’
Farmers balked at the
proposal originally
presented about a year ago.
That proposal, termed
“optimum” by the National
Park Service, would have
provided for a 1003 foot
scenic easement through the
Valley.
Of course, most of the
Cumberland Valley is
developed cither in homes pr
for agriculture.
One fanner figured he
could lose as much as 100
Twenty-four inactive stands at Lancaster's
Central Market, similar to this one currently run by
Regine (bold, were auctioned Thursday. See story
on page 39.
away and the risks, both for
independent farmer
producers and for integrated
feed companies, become
1 unacceptable.
Both Brown and Robert
Bucher, president of
Commonwealth National
Bank’s Agri-Loan division,
said their egg producing loan
customers are still operating
at a profit. But their profits
reflect 1979 egg prices and
1977 or earlier building costs.
With uncertanties clouding
the outlook, more and more
egg producers are opting for
contract arrangements with
integrated feed-processing
marketing firms.
s7.ool*irY««
acres of land if the proposal
were adopted. That would
have included a farm pond
built with ASCS money.
Sheldon B. Brymesser, R 2
Boiling Springs, said the
original proposal could have
meant he and his father
Stanley could have seen 15
acres of their dairy
operation go for the trail.
Since that tune, about a
year ago, several proposals
and counter-proposals have
been advanced.
Focus of Thursday night’s
meeting probably will be the
proposal by the Park Service
and Appalachian Trail
Conference to hire a con
sultant to prepare maps of
the area in question and
outline a proposed alternate
route.
(Turn to Page 17)
Under a typical contract, a
farmer owns his laying*
house, but the feed company
owns the birds and pays for
the feed and medication. The j
farmer is guaranteed a"
return on his investment and*
labor.
An independent egg
producer owns his birds as
well as his facilities. In a
good market, be will'
probably make more money
than the contract owner, but
the margin for error can be
slim. “It doesn’t take long to
lose 50 cents or a dollar a
bird,” Brown pointed out.
Bucher said his bank bad
(Turn to Page 39)