F2—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, August 18,1984
Farming with a mighty river at your door
BY JOYCE BUPP
Staff Correspondent
SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT -
With Ned. Young’s story,
Hollywood could make an epic
film, complete with action and
suspense, heroes and a villain.
The Ned Young family farms 265
acres of flat com and hay bottom
ground, just outside this small
borough in Lycoming County. Ned
and Molly, and the families of their
sons Ned, Jr., and Jeff, milk a herd
of 90 registered Holsteins, retailing
their production through an on
farm jugged-milk store.
Young grew up here on the home
place purchased by his dad, James
“Abe” Young. Over the years, the
look of the farm has changed, as a
large free-stall and feeding
complex, several silage and
haylage storage units, young stock
facilities and the retail store
replaced and added to the ap
pearance of the farm he
remembers as a child.
Always the river
But one thing hasn’t changed.
Always, the river is right there,
just a glance away.
Barely yards from the farm’s
road frontage, across a narrow
two-lane country road and over a
steep bank, flow the waters of the
Susquehanna. A large island runs
somewhat paralled to the farm,
forming a quiet, narrow channel
along the road and shielding the
farm’s view of the river’s greater
width and the city of Williamsport,
directly across on the opposite
shore.
Just upriver from the island, the
Jeff Young points out the water line in the feed room,
graphic reminder of the most recent flood at the farm of the
Ned Young family.
waters v isqu mna.. jng behind a small island a stone’s throw from
the Young farm house, bely the fury and devastation wrought by the river at floodstage.
Susquehanna curves in a gentle
bend away from the sort of giant
sand bar on which Youngs way
Farm sits. A railroad bed, raised
several yards above the farmland,
forms a definite border along the
back edge of the flat fields.
As Young grew up in the lap of
the Susquehanna, he paid little
attention to it, other than for the
recreational angle offered by a
four-and-a-half foot deep channel
and island to a group of exuberant
country youngsters.
“I used to see the river as a
plaything,” he reminisces. “Now, I
just see it as a headache. I can
understand why my mom and dad
worried about it.”
He was six years old when he
first saw the river’s villainous side.
It’s not something he’s ever
forgotten since that March of 1936.
At that time, the James Young
family lived in the house next to
the dairy store, occupied today by
Ned’s son. Already aware of the
river’s rising, they received word
that a cloudburst had dumped
volumes more water upriver at
Clearfield.
With just a little forewaring,
they were able to move the 15 head
of dairy cattle. A rescue boat took
the family from their home
surrounding the rising waters to
safety at a neighbor’s home just a
few hundred yards up the road,
where they remained for three
days waiting out the flood.
Large boll lost
Although the milk cows were
unharmed, a large bull was lost to
If r*—
Reliving the horrors of Agnes and other floods
It’s a headache
4*
Cradled in a bend of the scenic Susquehanna, just south of Williamsport, lies the
bottom ground Youngsway Farm owned by the Ned Young family.
Youngsway farm store cashier Lillian Snyder waits on a customer, who is numbered
among many who have faithfully returned each time the store drys out and is reopened
following flood.
the waters. Two horses owned by
the neighbor had tangled in har
ness and drowned. The Young’s
potato crop, in storage, was
ruined.
Building damage, though, was
minimal, mostly a cleanup
problem of mud and debris. By
planting time, the sandy soil had
dried and spring crops went in to
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replenish feed supplies.
Ten years later, again the river
turned nasty, washing several feet
of water over the Young’s farm.
This time, floodwaters came in
May, and the 50 acres of potatoes
just beginning to grow were
washed away. With a few hours of
warning, again the family had
been able to move the cows to
safety and then take refuge
themselves with the neighbors.
Repeat plot
November, 1952, the river again
went on a rampage. By then, the
plot was a repeat of former
floodings, with cattle saved, but
the year’s stored potato cash crop
a total loss.
By the early 1960’5, when Ned
had joined his father in the dairy
farm operation, the all-too
familiar warnings of rising water
sent family members hurriedly to
moving tasks they’d learned by
reluctant necessity. As always,
when the cattle were moved, herd
production dropped, with
relocation and feed changes.
Still, the Youngs returned to
clean up the mess each time,
grateful that buildings, herd,
machinery and lives were spared,
and only the layers of mud and
muck remained.
Hurricane Agnes
In 1972, that all changed as
Hurricane Agnes wrote a chapter
of Young’s history that they’d like
to forget - but which is forever,
indelibly, etched in their senses.
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It was mid-June when the
unrelenting rains of the violent
storm moved ud the Eastern
Seaboard. Com rows were just
beginning to shade the Young’s
fields, and second cutting of hay
lay in windrows waiting the baler.
Two years before, the dairy store
had been added, for retailing of the
production from the 75 head of
milking animals.
Forecasters repeatedly
predicted a crest level consistent
with earlier floods, and the Youngs
hoped that the losses would hold to
the usual mess of old tires and
soggy fields.
“We suddenly learned that the
river was expected to keep rising
much higher than had been an
ticipated,” wryly recalls Young,
reliving the painful experience.
Only one road, immediately on
the bank of the river, leads into the
farm. About a quarter-mile above
the Young’s buildings, it dips,
closing off road access to the farm
at a 16-foot river water level. At 22-
feet the waters begin lapping
around the dairy bam.
As the muddy river overflow
edged toward the barns, the road
already cut off, only the service
road along the raised railroad bed
offered a way out. Tractors were
quickly moved to higher ground at
a neighbors. Heifers and calves
went to havens up to six miles
away.
****** 4
to
Second floor haven
(Turn to Page F 4)