0-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 8,1986
II
a:
NOW IS THE TIME
To Plan Forage
Management
A good supply of quality forages
is one of the most important things
in the feeding program of
dairymen, cattlemen and sheep
producers. Growers should now be
planning what kind of forage crops
they hope to produce this year.
Both hay and silage crops
respond to good management.
Growers who make a special effort
to obtain maximum yields of
quality forages usually produce
more than the average.
Some of the top alfalfa growers
produce double the tonnage per
acre than the average. In fact the
1985 champion alfalfa grower in
the state averaged just over 10 tons
per acre. This did not just happen.
They planned and made decisions
on data from their farm records.
Doing all the practices that have
been successful, and doing them on
time, will normally bring good
results.
To Evaluate Manure
Plant Food
Our agronomists have told
farmers for 40 years that a ton of
dairy manure is equivalent to 100
pounds of a 10-3-5 fertilizer, but
recent research indicates less than
half of the nitrogen is available to
the crop when manure is spread
daily and left exposed to the
elements.
Current data has confirmed that
a ton of stored daily manure is
equivalent to 100 pounds of 10-3-5
fertilizer. The nutrients in fresh
Farm Calendar
Saturday, February 8
Butler Holstein Club Annual
Meeting.
Monday, February 10
Dairy Herd Buyout Program,
Bermudian Springs High
School, 7:30 p.m.
Dairy Herd Buyout Program,
Lancaster Farm and Home
Center, 7:30 p.m.
Dairy Herd Buyout Program,
Berks County Agricultural
Center, 10:30 a.m.
Cumberland County 4-H Dairy
Club Meeting, Brethren in
Christ Church, Carlisle.
Tuesday, February 11
Milking School at Troy Citizens
and Northern Bank Office, 10
a.m.to3p.m.
Regional Fruit Growers meeting,
Ramada Inn, Chinchilla.
Wednesday, February 12
Milking School at Troy Citizens
and Northern Bank Office, 10
a.m. to 3 p.m.
Cambria-Somerset Potato
WOW.' THE MILK CHECK
IS HEtfC AND AN
£6O CHECK 7DO' ,
o*
*
e>
c.
By Jay Irwin
Lancaster County Agriculture Agent
Phone 717-394-6851
manure are equal to those ot
inorganic fertilizer for crop
production, but more slowly
available. In the year of ap
plication, about one-half of the
nitrogen in manure is available.
Studies show that com fertilized
with fresh manure applied and
worked into the soil in the spring
produced the most com silage.
Yields were lowest when the
manure was applied in the fall, left
exposed on the soil surface all
winter and plowed down in the
spring.
It’s important to manage
manure application just as you
manage other areas of your
operation. Another important
factor, by incorporating the
manure into the soil immediately,
you reduce the possibility of water
contamination and odors.
To Prune
Trees
General pruning of apple trees
should be in full swing at this time
of year, especially if you have a lot
of pruning to do. I’d like to remind
growers and homeowners not to
over-prune young trees or those
which haven’t yet started to bear
fruit. There is a tendency to either
prune the small trees too heavily,
or simply to leave them alone. A
middle-of-the-road course is best.
The training of young trees
should involve just enough cutting
to maintain a healthy central
leader and to develop the desired
number of well-spaced scaffold
branches. Branches that are either
poorly spaced, or ones making
Meeting, New Germany Church
Hale, New Germany, 10 a.m. to
3:30 p.m.
USDA Dairy Herd Reduction
Program, 9:45 a.m., Cum
berland County Extension
Office, Carlisle, OR at 11:15
a.m., Penn Township Fireball,
Huntsdale.
Thursday, February 13
Lancaster County Extension
Service Annual Dinner
Meeting, Farm and Home
Center, 6:30 p.m.
Mercer County Com Day, Mercer
Vo-Tech, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Sheep Meeting, Berks County Ag
Center, 7:30 p.m.
Mid-Atlantic Direct Marketing
Conference, Marriott’s Hunt
Valley Inn, Hunt Valley, Md.
Saturday, February 15
The Pennsylvania Flying Farmers
Valentine Banquet, Country
Table Restaurant, Mt. Joy; call
David Kruger, 717-867-2384.
Cumberland County Holstein Club
Annual Meeting, South Mid-
OM BOY' P\ CROP CHECK
„ ALSO/ -
C
O
very narrow-angled crotches
should be removed.
Keep in mind, when you start
pruning early - start with your
hardier trees, the apple and pear
with plums and sour cherries next
and leave your peach till near the
end; they’re quite tender.
To Dress For
The ChiU Index
Winter is not over as some
people would like to think—it’s
only the middle of February. And
when you’re outside on a cold
windy day and it “feels” colder
than the thermometer says it is,
you’re right. It is colder. Every
year many people are severely
frostbitten because they dressed
according to the thermometer and
not according to the “chill index”
temperature.
The chill index is a combination
of wind velocity and temperature
reading. You’ve probably heard it
reported on the weather broadcast.
An example of the chill index is
this; at ten degrees fahrenheit
above zero with a ten mile per hour
wind, the chill temperature to
exposed skin is actually nine
degrees below zero...not ten above
as the thermometer reads.
That’s why farmers and others
who work outside in the winter
should dress warmer than they feel
is necessary. Remember - when
the wind is blowing, the tem
perature not only feels colder, it is
colder. Don’t dress for the ther
mometer...dress for safety, and
dress warmly.
dleton Fireball, Boiling
Springs.
Monday, February 17
Adams County Beekeepers
meeting, “Winter Management
Checking Honey Stores,”
7:30 p,m., Penn State Fruit
Research Lab.
Tuesday, February 18
“Coping with lower milk prices”
workshop, Bradford County
Extension office, 10 a.m. to 3
p.m.
Lancaster County Crops and Soils
Day, Lancaster Farm and
Home Center, 8:30 a.m. to 3
p.m.
Lykens Valley Local of Inter-State
District 7 Meeting, 11:45 a.m.,
Killinger Grange Hall,
Millersburg.
County-wide 4-H dairy meeting,
Mercer County, 8 p.m., Ex
tension Center.
Wednesday, February 19
Dairy Day with Atlantic, 11 a.m.,
New Vernon Grange.
Vegetable Grower’s Meeting,
Rutter’s Restaurant, 8:45 a.m.
to 3 p.m.
Thursday, February 20
Keystone Pork Congress, Penn
Harris Motor Inn, Harrisburg, 8
a.m.
AAICL
I
THE UNFAILING
TREASURE
February 9,1986
background Scripture:
Matthew 6:19-21; Luke 12; 13-21,
Devotional Reading:
Luke 16:19-31
Possessions: things that belong
to me-or perhaps things that I
want to belong to me and for which
I am spending my time, effort and
thought to obtain.
Probably nothing causes us so
much inner conflict than our
possessions. On the one hand we
teach each other that only spiritual
treasures make life worthwhile
and give it everlasting meaning. At
the same time, we have structured
our society and our individual lives
on the pursuit of more and more
material possessions. We value
everything with a pricetag that
reflects material worth. We judge
other people, ourselves and even
our spiritual institutions on the
basis of their material balance
sheets.
WHOSE POSSESSIONS?
Yet, we remember that Jesus
said, “Take heed, and beware of
all covetousness; for a man’s life
does not consist in the abundance
of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). I
am not a rich man (in material
things), but I do have lots of
material possessions-“lots” in
contrast to what my fore-bearers
had or what the average person
has in one of the Third World
countries. Would I be more
“spiritual” if I had a lot less:
OUR READERS WRITE,
Dear Editor:
Have you noticed the change in
hats? When I was home on the
farm we wore straw hats, and the
girls wore sun bonnets. In the
Draft Horse and Mule Sale, Farm
Show Complex, Harrisburg.
Mastitis and Milking Equipment
update, 9:45 a.m., Berks County
Ag Center, Leesport.
Inter-State District 2 annual
meeting, 6:45 p.m., Northern
Bedford High School, Loysburg.
Friday, February 21
Pa. Holstein Convention, Pitt
sburgh Sheraton Inn; continues
through Feb. 22.
Pa. Cattlemen’s Conference,
Allenberry Resort, Boiling
Springs; continues through
Feb. 23.
Mastitis and Milking Equipment
Update, Lancaster Farm and
Home Center, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Maryland Holstein Convention,
Ramada Inn, Hagerstown, Md.;
continues through Feb. 22.
Maybe yes, maybe no, but not
necessarily either.
It is not that my possessions are
evil, nor do they have the power to
corrupt or adulterate me. It is the
way I feel about and value those
possessions that make the dif
ference. If I let my “things”
possess me, that is when the evil
and the corruption set in. This is
what Jesus was saying in his
parable of the rich fool, (Luke
12:16-21). The problem was not
that the man was enterprising with
the fruits of his labor, that he
wanted to pull down his barns and
build bigger ones, but that he
thought that in doing so he had
found the treasure of life.
FOOL!
27-34.
God’s response jars us just as it
must have shaken up the rich fool;
“Fool! This night your soul is
required of you; and the things you
have prepared, whose will they
be?” (12:20). Take a quick mental
inventory of your material
possessions and then read those
words again: “...the things you
have prepared, whose will they
be?” If tonight were to prove to
your last night, what treasure, if
any, could you take with you?
The bright and shiny things of
this world are wonderful to own,
use and enjoy, but we must con
stantly remind ourselves that they
constitute a treasure that
ultimately will fail us. It may be
stolen from us, we may lose it in a
terrible natural disaster, or keep it
until our dying day, but it is the
wrong treasure upon which to
found our lives. As Jesus says,
“...provide yourselves with purses
that do not grow old, with a
treasure in the heavens that does
not fail, where no thief approaches
and no moth destroys. For where
your treasure is, there will your
heart be also” (12:33,34).
(Based on copyrighted Outlines produced by the
Committee on the Uniform Series and used by
permission Released by Community I Suburban
Press)
AND OTIIER OPINIONS
Hats off Jo you
A big cowboy hat has to have
some adornment like a rattlesnake
skin or feathers. I saw one hat that
i had a pheasant’s head and breast
in front and the wings on the sides.
Hope none of my hunting buddies
1 see him. They shoot cockbirds no
matter where they are.
, The most useless hat I ever saw
was the overseas cap the army
gave me in ’42. It didn’t keep the
sun out of your eyes, or keep your
* ears warm.
O a
winter we kids wore wool hats that
itched like crazy.
About 1927 or '2B, no self
respecting teenager wore a hat.
We’d wet our hair and part it in the
middle and in two minutes outside
in winter it froze. What price
vanity?
Now all hats have some kind of
logo, like seed, feed, or fertilizer,
not to forget farm machinery. You
advertise their products and they
charge you a lot of money for them
besides.
I bought one of those big cowboy
hats that you see alot of. I’m on the
short side, and I looked like toad
under a toadstool. The last time I
saw it, momma cat had kittens in
it.
The Boy Scout hat was no
bargain either. After you put it m
your barracks bag for a week or
two it had more wrinkles than two
pounds of prunes.
Now, you take that irpn helmet.
There was a useful article. We
wore it, took baths in it, washed
our clothes and it made a good
seat.
I finally hung up my straw hat
last fall. Maybe next spring I’U
hang a few lures and bucktails on it
and see how it works as a fishing
hat.
The Hat Historian