York farm tour
(Continued from Page A 26)
layers kept for the market
following. While the continuing
Avian Flu quarantine prohibits
visitors from viewing the flock,
Markey hopes to have newly
hatched baby chicks on display.
Their son Ron and his wife
Carolyn are in partnership with
Ken and Eleanor in the family
farm and market business. The
couple’s three daughters, all past
Pennsylvania Apple Queens, will
be on hand to help answer
questions and explain the fruit
production industry.
A herd of Herefords graze in the
pasture where visitors enter the
final stop on the tour, the Miller
Plant Farm.
Owned by John Miller and his
son Dave, this wholesale and retail
operation saw its first greenhouse
go up in 1929. While the farm,
originally purchased by the family
in 1915, once maintained dairy
jnging jskets, individual potted plants and market
packets of annuals add to the kaleidoscope of color inside
greenhouse at Miller Plant Farm.
cows, a meat business and truck
farming as major commodities,
horticulture reigns here as king
today.
In the 1960’s the greenhouse
production business really came
into his own. A total of 15 separate
growing houses cover about a half
acre in glass and poly. Bedding
flower and vegetable plants by the
hundreds of dozens go to
customers each week through fho
spring planting season. Many are
retailed to local gardening en
thusiasts, both on-farm and at
market stands at Eastern and
Central Markets, but large
numbers are also wholesaled to
other retailers.
Cantaloupes are likely the single
most important crop produced at
Miller Plant Farms, sold both as
seedling plants in peat pots and as
“finished product” from the acres
land with black mulching plastic.
Customers, from as way way as
Perrydell Farm Dairy is the home starting site for the York County farms tour
scheduled next Saturday.
Marland Virginia, return each
year for plant and fruit quality
they’ve come to depend upon.
Seasonal retailing items keep the
greenhouses in production, with
traditional holiday plants, cut flower
arrangements and
houseplants available year round.
Holiday pots of chrysanthemums
still brighten the production houses
in November, while pansy seeds
are already going into starter flats
for spring.
Truck crops comprise a large
volume of the Miller’s market
HARRISBURG - State Grange
Master Charles Wismer has
requested the PA Milk Marketing
Board to issue a dealer’s license to
the Scheps Cheese Company,
Tunkhannock, to operate again
under a chapter 11 bankruptcy
reorganization plan with the
provision that they pay their
shippers cash on delivery for all
milk and with stringent monitoring
by the Board.
The State Grange, along with the
PA. Farmers Union, has been
assisting 120 former Scheps
producers by giving their
organizational support and sub
sidizing the farmers’ legal fees.
Wismer said, “As a result of our
close work with the Scheps
producers, we strongly believe
that the only way these farmers
can recoup their losses is for the
plant to reorganize and resume
production of cheese.”
608 e - evergreen rd *
SWINE SYSTEMS (717)274-3488
commodities over the summer
months. Popular are the steady
supplies of sweet corn, cauliflower
and field-grown plants, such as
broccoli and cabbage, planted in
late spring for fall garden crops.
A half-acre of bell peppers
planted this year is earmarked for
wholesaling to the Weis super
market chain. Black plastic also
went under the pepper crop, along
with a new innovation for the
season, drip irrigation lines to
supply moisture at exacting times
for these critical crops.
Grange urges Scheps reopening
The Grange leader also noted
that under the proposed
reorganization plan, farmers do
not have to resume shipping milk
to Scheps in order to be eligible to
receive payments on the money
owed them. Provision is made in
the reorganization plan to pay
back fanners over a period of up to
six years, whether they continue to
ship or not.
A vote taken of all Scheps
creditors indicated that 80 percent
favored reorganization over sale of
assets, Wismer said. At several
meetings held jointly by the
Grange and Farmers Union,
producers also showed over
whelming support for the restart of
Scheps and the proposed
reorganization plan.
“Farmers have a lot more to lose
if the Scheps plant is closed down
than with its restart,” Wismer
said. “We genuinely feel that we
Purpose of the annual farm tour
is to promote a better un
derstanding between the area’s
farmers and their urban neigh
bors, through a close-up look at
these working family farms.
York County has a total of 2,510
farms, with just over half of the
county maintained as farmland.
Farmers in York County produce
over 27 million gallons of milk and
nearly 100,000 dozens of eggs. They
also raise 157,000 head of livestock
and over 480,000 laying hens and
broilers.
have the producers’ best interests
at heart when we recommend that
Scheps be issued a license. If the
plant is closed permanently, the
producers, as unsecured creditors,
will lose everything.
“With the provision that
producers be paid on a C.O.D.
basis, the producers have nothing
to lose and everything to gain.”
The Milk Marketing Board is
expected to make a decision on the
Scheps license at their June 21
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