Alo—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 23,1980
Lancaster Farming says...
As the tractors and pickups from
the South and Midwest roll into
Washington D.C. farmers in Penn
sylvania will be setting their sights on
Harrisburg. But the purposes for the
trips will be quite different.
Farmers motoring to the Capital
City this coming Thursday, Friday
and Saturday will be headed for the
Second Farm Machinery Exposition.
Despite efforts by promoters to the
contrary, it is inevitable that the
Expo be viewed as a Farm Show in
miniature.
There will be livestock at the Expo
for the first time this year. A major
all-breed swine show will be held
during the Expo, Friday. And a big
sale is set for Saturday, at 11 a.m.
Goats, noticably absent from Farm
Show in light of their increasing
popularity among both back-to-the
soil types and commercial farmers,
will be present this year at Expp.
Horses, a popular feature in 1979,
will return with a draft horse and
mule show on Thursday morning.
Those animals will sell on Thursday
afternoon. In between times there
will be a tack sale.
THE MAN
BORN BLIND
Lesson for February 24, 1980
Background Scriptures:
John 9.
Devotional Reading:
lsajah3s:s-10.
The story of “The Man
Bom Blind” is one that could
\i " S-J* I
TO TEST
HOME-GROWN SEEDS
I personally feel that it is
best to start with certified
seeds when trying to grow a
good crop. This will assure
the grower of good ger
mination, the variety
wanted, and little or no weed
seeds or diseases.
RURAL ROUTE
THAT JOST ABOUT COVERS WUR DUTIES,
SALARY, AND VACATION TIME. LET MEp
SHOW VOV AROUND m FARM
Farmers needed to make Expo fly
If traditional horsepower isn't good
enough for you, check out the
Pennsylvania Stock Farm Tractor
Pull Championship on Saturday.
Contestants won’t be running the
super-stock or modified hogs which
grab most of the spotlight at other
shows. All pullers will run stock
machinery—tractors that may have
been hitched to the spreader at
home before hooking up to the
weight sled at the contest. It’s tractor
pulling the way most farmers can
understand it.
In its place will be the Penn
sylvania Young Farmer Volleyball
tournament. Action gets underway
just after the preliminary rounds of
tractor pulling—so grab a seat in the
just as easily be taken from
the pages of your newspaper
as tiie Gospel According to
John. People have not
changed all that much since
the day when Jesus healed
that man.
It is a very dramatic and
significant utory. John
regards it as more than just
another healing, rather as a
“sign” that points to beyond
the restoration of a man’s
sight to a vital truth about
Jesus Chnst: “I am the light
of the world” (9:5).
Who Sinned?
What a glaring contrast
between this sublime
pronouncement and the
revealing, self-incriminating
questions people pose to him.
However, some farmers
like to use their own seeds,
or the seeds produced by a
neighbor.
In these cases we strongly
recommend the seeds be
sent to the Pennsylvania
Department of Agriculture
seed laboratory for testing.
Details are available from
any of our Penn State Ex
tension offices.
With the increasing cost of
seeding crops, it is poor
management to use seeds of
unknown performance. Poor
/XT S BEEN A LON 6 TIME S/HCE WE
Cave hiked anv outside help, dot
(VOU HAVE AW QUESTIONS ? p^-^
An unfortunate loss to most far
mers at the Expo will be the absence
of a Farmers’Fun Night.
Any of those who watched or joined
the fun at the Fun Night last year are
sure to feel the same way about its
passing as most older folks do about
the loss of carousels in parks.
It was a barrel of laughs for a
minimum of expense.
The first of these comes
from his own disciples:
“Rabbi, who sinned, this
man or his parents, that he
was bom blind?” (9:2).
People then as now are
always preoccupied with sin
when they find someone in
trouble. So it was with Job
and his friends and so it is
even today, despite Jesus’
forthright reply: “It was not
that this man sinned, or his
parents, but that the works
of God might be made
manifest in him” (9:3). His
disciples, typically, were
focusing upon human sin
w|en they should have been
concentrating on the glory of
God. We still do that today,
don’t we?
germination, unwanted rnanager of our local Penn
weed seeds, or diseases can State research farm, John
quickly b’mg about a crop Yocum, discussed the
failure. subject.
TO MAKE PLANS FOR
TOP-DRESSING WHEAT
At this time we do not
know the exact condition of
our winter grams. The
weather has been very dry
and without snow cover. This
means that our winter grams
are in an uncertain con
dition.
At the recent Crops and
Soils Day meeting, the
L? (
Large Arena sometime between
12 30 and I p.m.
The game to watch, depending on
the draw and match-ups, should be
the contest between the Ephrata
Area Young Farmers and Solanco.
Ephrata last year took the cham
pionship at the summer picnic.
Solanco, we’re told, is hot for a shot
at the group from up-county which
put them back as runners-up.
With ail of the spectacles on tap for
the visitor the question of excitement
is answered. But how about the
business end?
Serious questions have been
raised about the ability of a state like
Pennsylvania to support three major
agricultural shows.
Farm Show certainly is the grand
old patriarch of the clan and shows
no sign of decline
Ag Progress Days, with live
demonstrations of both equipment
and crop growing, has to be the
favorite of those who are interested
in no-fnlls farm displays.
But the Expo still has a way to go.
Most major farm equipment
manufacturers are not showing at
When the man had been
healed by Jesus, his friends
and neighbors looked at him
and asked, “Is not this the
man who used to sit and
beg?” The answer should
have been obvious, but how
typical anrf contemporary
are the replies: “Some said,
‘lt is he’; others said, “No,
but he is like him” (9:9).
Because they were not
prepared to believe he could
be healed, they refused to
acknowledge the obvious
fact that that was precisely
what had happened. Today
we would say the young man
had been incorrectly
diagnosed or that his blind
ness had been
psychosomatic or that the
He strongly advised the
use of 30 to 50 pounds of
actual nitrogen per acre this
spring on winter wheat. This
same treatment can be
made on winter barley
providing lodging is not a
problem.
The fertilizer application
should be made around the
middle of March when
vegetative growth is star-
By Tom Armstrong
r
i
BY CURT HABLER, EDITOR
whole thing was a clever
fraud.
One Thing I Know
Next comes the inevitable
question from the
Pharisees: “how were your
eyes opened?” (9:10).
Notice, the emphasis is upon
“how,” not “who.” They
knew “who,” but what they
wanted was some way of
discrediting him. “This man
is not from God, for he does
not keep the sabbath”
(9:16). Instead of rejoicing
over the miraculous healing
of a blind man, the Pharisees
did their best to fmd fault
with the healer. A few,
however, pondered the
obvious: “How can a man
ting. Increased yields of both
gram and straw can be
expected from this extra
nitrogen.
TO BEWARE OF
NYLON TOW ROPES
Our safety engineer at
Penn State, Dennis Murphy,
reports that nylon ropes are
becoming very popular
around the fanii for towing
purposes. They are light in
weight and very strong.
Howevef, they have the
property of stretching under
a pull, similar to a spring.
The recoil provides extra
pull to dislodge a vehicle or a
stationary object.
Farm Calendar
Monday, February 25
Adams County Extension
Farm Estate Planning
Meeting; 9:30 a.m.; West
Street Branch Gettysburg
National Bank.
USDA public meeting in
Lancaster; 10-00 a.m. at
the Treadway Resort Inn.
Maryland Agricultural Week
the Expo. They say they figure it is
too close in the year to Farm Show
and too similar in format. They'd
rather stick with a proven winner.
While Farm Show rightly is limited
to farm-related firms, the Expo has a
hodge-podge of exhibits,' some with
only marginal relationship to far
ming.
The answer to the question of
support, m the end, will be given by
farmers. It's one case where they can
ballot with their feet.. by coming
to Expo if they feel it worthwhile, by
forgetting it if they feel it redundant.
While last year’s crowd was small it
was interested in buying, most
dealers said
If there is to be a 1981 Expo far
mers will have to support this year’s
Expo at least as well as they did
1979’5.
Exhibitors will show up only where
farmers want them to be And if a<
February-March show is what the
farm community wants, farmers
should be in Harrisburg Feburary 28,
29 and March 1 for the second Expo.
If it’s worth having, it’s worth sup
porting.
who is a sinner do such
signs?”
We can see the frustration
of the Pharisees mounting,
for instead of discrediting
Jesus, he seeii .• to be
gaining ground. Jive God
the praise,” they order, “we
know that this man is a •
sinner” "(9:24). The young
man’s answer is a
masterpiece of sincerity and
courage: “Whether he is a
sinner, I do not know; one
thing I know, that though I
was blind, now I see” (9:25).
Furious, the Pharisees
confront Jesus: “Are we also
shnd?” (9:40). And for once
•hey have asked the right
luestion!
This recoil can cause a
serious accident if you’re not
extremely careful.
There shpuld not be a
clevis, shackle, or chain on
the end of the rope. Hook
only to hitch points that are
very sturdy. Keep bystan
ders at a safe distance when
making a heavy pull with
nylon tow rope.
As you may recall, several
years ago a group of pic
nickers were having a tug of
war with a nylon rope. The
rope broke and the recoil
(Turn to Page Al 4)
Exhibits; Valley Mall;
Hagerstown, Maryland;
continues through March
1.
North Jersey Regional
Christmas Tree Growers
Meeting; 7:30 p.m.;
Extension Center;
Flemmgton, New Jersey.
(Turn to Page A 29)
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