rOL. 30 No. 9
Lancaster County resource conservationist, Tim Breneisen, (right) addresses the
problems of erosion and sedimentation, during the Lancaster County Conservation
District's meeting on Wednesday. Representatives from a broad spectrum of county,
state and federal agencies were in attendance.
Soil and water stewardship
stressed at LCCD meeting
BY JACK HUBLEY
LANCASTER A discussion of
he county’s continuing soil erosion
md sedimentation problem
ughlighted a Lancaster County
Jonservation District meeting held
it Lancaster’s Stockyard Inn on
Wednesday.
Addressing the problem was
esource conservationist, Timothy
Ireneisen, who noted that the
ncrease in soil loss through
Salers are this doctor’s beef prescription
BY JACK HUBLEY
STATE COLUSGE - The year
was 1951 when a young Penn State
pre-med student named Gerald
Clair found himself sharing Centre
County’s Spring Creek with royal
company.
Fishing his way down the creek
one Saturday morning, Clair found
himself face-to-face with a
distinguished angler accompanied
by two men in business suits.
"Son, would you step aside for
the President, please 9 ” one of the
men queried. And the younger
angler knew there could, be only
one correct answer.
Today that stretch of creek is
part of Lyn-Lee Farm, whose
owner, Dr. Gerald Clair can still
vividly recount the details of his
encounter with President Dwight
D. Eisenhower.
And as of the fall of 1984, Lyn-
Lee has become the home of yet
another "President.” His name is
SRT President 253, a ruddy-coated
yearling Salers hull. And his
nickname "Keystone” may, in
deed, prove prophetic, since, as the
breed’s first fullblood bull residing
in Pennsylvania, he may become
the keystone of his state’s future
Three Sections
erosion has paralleled the in
creased production of corn and
other intensively cultivated crops.
This is why we’re pushing no
till farming, either with some kind
of crop residue or a cover crop to
protect the soil,” Breneisen
stressed.
Since farming is the single
largest category of land use in the
county, the majority of erosion and
sedimentation problems are of
Salers herd.
Moving to Lyn-Lee in 1965, Clair
began his beef career with
Herefords, later switching to
Charolais-Hereford and Chianma-
Angus crosses. In 1982, Dr. Clair
purchased PS Sure Play, a Power
Play son, in order to upgrade his
herd.
"What we've tried to do is buy
the top breeding stock available,”
says Dr. Claire, whose farm is also
home to a number of blue-blooded
sheep and swine. As an adjunct to
his beef enterprises, Clair hopes to
produce some of the state’s top
club pigs and lambs.
Salers cattle first caught the
doctor’s eye about a year and a
half ago, when Clair noticed that
the French breed was consistently
in the limelight at the National
Western’s carcass shows.
The bottom line in the beef
business is a carcass,” Dr. Clan
points out, “so I started domj
some research on the breed.”
Claire soon learned that Salers
were an intermediate-sized breed
native to southcentral France.
With their heavy, dark red coats,
(Turn to Page A 27)
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 5,1985
agricultural origin. But other
activities involving earth moving,
such as lumbering and develop
ment, can cause serious problems
if not conducted in a conscientious
manner.
All earth moving activities fall
under the jurisdiction of Chapter
102 of the Pennsylvania Clean
Streams Law, the speaker pointed
out. The law states that all such
(Turn to Page A 24)
Lyn-Lee Farms’ owner, Dr. Gerald Clair, (left) feels that fullblood Salers bulls, like his
SRT President 253, may prove to be a healthy shot in the arm for the beef industry. Herd
manager Marty Overholt agrees.
Search for origin continues
Avian influenza
discovered in
Maryland flock
BY JACK HUBLEY
TANEYTOWN, Md. - Less than
three months after the avian in
fluenza quarantine was lifted in
Pennsylvania, the lethal HSN2
strain has resurfaced in Maryland.
The same virus that was
responsible for the depopulation of
more than 16 million Pennsylvania
fowl at a federal cost exceeding $6O
million was officially diagnosed on
Dec. 28, in a mixed flock of
chickens and chukar partridges
owned by a Carroll County dealer.
But even though the dealer
regularly obtains a substantial
number of birds in Pennsylvania,
according to Maryland state J
vetenna: n Dr. J.C. Shook, no
evidence has been uncovered
linking Pa. fowl to the current
outbreak.
Headquartered near Taneytown,
Md., the dealer was selling birds of
various species from his truck in
Washington, D.C., when he was
apprehended by police on Dec. 8,
for selling without a license. Since
a number of his birds appeared to
be ill, police notified the SPCA,
who confiscated the entire
truckload of birds and submitted
the ailing birds to the Md. Dept, of
Agriculture laboratory in College
Park for testing.
Virus isolation studies conducted
at the Department’s Salisbury
17.50 per Tear
laboratory confirmed the presence
of avian flu, and the virus was then
sent to Ames, lowa, where it was
positively typed as the deadly
HSN2 strain.
"We don’t know the source of the
infection at this point,” said
Dr. Shook, adding that Penn
sylvania is certainly a possibility
since about three-quarters of the
dealer’s sources of birds are
located in the Keystone state.
"It’s logical that there’s a
cesspool of virus out there that we
haven’t found yet,” Dr. Shook said.
"Getting all the virus out of a three
or four-state area is not an easy
' tSSR; but I’m not
surori^ ’’
The veterinarian said that the
dealer’s mixed flock of 300 to 500
chickens, ducks, guineas, pigeons
and other assorted fowl was
depopulated on Thursday. About
three or four other Maryland
premises known to have received
birds from the infected flock will
also be depopulated, he said.
"Our main concern now is where
the birds came from, as well as
any other sales that he might have
made,” Shook continued. “We
have to reconstruct his business
dealings, hopefully for the past
couple of months.”
Though no virus has been traced
(Turn to Page Al 7)