AlO-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, August 24, 1991 OPINION That’s (Not) Expected Last year when the price paid to dairymen for milk was at an all-time high, the price for dairy products in the supermarket rose to the. occasion. That’s expected. This year, many farmers consider the much lower price they have received for milk to be an all-time low, at least in purchasing power for the goods and services they must buy to keep their operations in production. But the price for dairy products in the supermarket remains about as high as last year. That’s not expected. And now beef producers have the same legitimate gripe. According to the National Farmers Organization (NFO) head quartered in Ames, lowa, on August 8, the average price of U.S. fed cattle reached $64 per hundredweight. This means that America’s cattle feeders are collectively experiencing a daily loss of income in excess of $26,000,000 compared to the March 18 price high of $B3 per hundred. Since the March fed cattle high, a wire service market survey of 15 beef cuts shows that the average retail value of a beef carcass has dropped only $52 per head. During the same five month per iod, the value of that same carcass cut-out value for packers has dropped $l5O per head and the cattle feeder’s share has plum meted $220 per head. Considering that the average daily kill is 120,000 cattle, the loss to producers reaches more than $26,000,000 daily. It’s true that farmers are holding their cattle to heavier weights, and that’s a mistake on their part. But the truth is that the added weight is the equivalent of only 6,000 head per day. Even adding in these “extra” pounds, we are still killing fewer head and pro cessing fewer pounds of beef than we were a year ago. Heavier weight cattle are contributing to the problem, but they’re not the real reason for the price drop. Retailers are making a profit-killing at the expense of both fanners and packers. That’s not expected. The retail food industry could do a lot to help the movement of beef and dairy products. They must make a profit, but rather than take advantage of a windfall situation, they should cut their pro fits to reasonable levels and feature more beef in their advertising. That’s expected. Farm Calendar Md. State Fair, Timonium, thru Sept. 2. District VIII4-H Horse Show, Elk Co. Fairgrounds, Kersey. Centre Co. Junior Dairy Show, Centre Hall Fairgrounds, 4 p.m. Elizabethtown Community Fair, Elizabethtown. Old Tyme Days, Blain Rentzel Farm, Manchester, thru Aug. 25. Indiana Co. Fair, Indiana, thru Aug. 31. Old Tyme Days, Blain Rentzel Farm, Manchester, thru Aug. 25. Wattsburg Fair, Wattsburg, thru Sept. 1. West End Fair, Gilbert, thru Aug. 31. Southcentral 4-H Show, Farm Show Building, Harrisburg. New York State Dairy Day, New York State Fairgrounds, Lancaster Farming Established 1955 Published Every Saturday Ephrata Review Building 1 E Mam St Ephrata, PA 17522 by Lancaster Farming, Inc. A St&nman Enterprise Robert G Campbell General Manager Everett R Newswanger Managing Editor Syracuse. Pre-Convention Legislative Con ference, Grantville Holiday Pasture Grazing Field Day, Ag Arena, State College, 9 [Turn to Page A 27) Farm Forum Editor: We have had a lot of deer dam age over the years (30) on our corn and vegetable gram and pasture fences etc. They got most of the sweet com most of the time. The Pa. Game Commission has never come to see the damage, nor has it recognized the damage. It runs into the high thousands, and the deer are constantly wrecking the electric fences and causing cattle to go out of the pastures. The Game Commission and the law makers know about it very well. / IT LOOK 9 UK£ \ / ukjclf one WAS ABL£ J TO F=IXTH£ A AA ILK IMG- y c L To Consider Ensiling Corn As a result of the drought, many farmers will find it beneficial to ensile all their com this year. Also you may want to consider ensiling your neighbor’s com fields. Before harvesting your com for grain, you may want to make sure you or your neighbors have enough silage. Your com fields may be worth more as silage. Indi cations are there will be a good com harvest in the Midwest. Also, check to see which fields are polli nating and which ones are not. Fields that have not pollinated well and barren stalks make decent com silage if the plant is allowed to mature. Instead of being in the ear, the nutrients remain in the stalk. You may have noticed that many barren stalks turn red. This is due to their higher sugar content. To Calibrate Before Seeding Before seeding any forages or small grains this fall, calibrate your seeder. This could save you money while insuring the stand you are striving for. Knowing the ideal seeding rate for a crop is only half the battle. Knowing how much seed is being applied by your seeder is the final step in achieving desired plant population. A study in Wisconsin found that most growers knew how much seed was suggested per acre but few knew exactly how much seed was being applied until the job is done. University of Wisconsin Agri- Explaining the deer damage to the Game Commission is like Dr. Einstein trying to explain the theory of relativity to an eighteen year-old that is still in the third grade. It’s very futile. They have made a “hot spot” program which is a sly crooked gimmick to open up farmland to public hunting for free. Even the mafia couldn’t be more clever. That’s freeloading at its lowest. They take us farmers for suckers as they have for years. [Turn to Pag* A 34) /pV $ cultural Engineers found the same setting on a seeder gave a large variation in the amount of seed used per acre in an alfalfa seeding trail. Several factors contributed to the difference. These factors included seed size and whether the seed was coated or not Seeder calibration is fairly easy. Each time a variety of seed is changed, the seeder should be recalibrated. To calibrate a seeder, spread a tarp on the ground and run the seeder over it. Then select sev eral sites on the tarp and count or weigh the number of seeds in a square foot area. To convert to an acre, multiply the average weight per square foot by 43,560. When was the last time you reviewed your will? If it has been [IV LAWRENCE W Al I H OUSf 'sasiLs ZEALOT OR BIGOT? August 25, 1991 Background Scripture: Nehemiah 12:27 13:31 Devotional Reading: Nehemiah would do well today as a television evangelist. He is dramatic, uncompromising, force ful, and he has no doubt that his convictions are the will of God. He is a zealot for God. Or is he a bigot? Sometimes there is a very fine line between the two. No doubt about it, Nehe miah accomplished a great deal with the people of Israel. The temple and walls of Jerusalem would not likely have been built without his dynamic leadership and capacity for organization. I do not doubt that God was able to do much good through him. But I cannot overlook the harm he did with his passion for racial exclusivity. I appreciate that he was trying to keep Judaism pure from foreign influences, but this emphasis not only did not work over the long run, it also served as a problem, which plagued the Jews throughout their history, both in their understanding of who they were and in their relations with other peoples. It placed an ordinate emphasis upon who they were, rather than what they did about it. Later, Jesus would say, “...and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Mt. 4:9). Faithful response, not race, is the key to being a child of God. PRIDE VS. HUMILITY One of the problems with this racial exclusivity the ban against foreign wives (note: for eign husbands are never men tioned!) is that it led to racial pride rather than humility. It was To Update Legal Papers sft Psalms 92:1-15, )>, _ e cr c- several years, you need to review it and make necessary changes. The increase in land values, expansion in your faim enter prises, new additions to your fami ly, and change in life insurance coverage are a few items that require changes in your will. When you are reviewing your will, you also need to update your financial records. You need to have in a central location a listing of bank accounts, insurance poli cies, purchase dates, and prices of capital assets (land, buildings, equipment, stock in companies including cooperatives, etc.), loans, and investments. This will make the job of settling your estate easier and insure your family receive everything they are entitled too. With some advance planning and organization, you will eliminate many problems and frustrations. this pride which often became arrogance and probably did more to corrupt the faith than any other single factor. Christians have often suffered from a similar arro gance of exclusivity. We, too, are likely to forget that it is not so much what a person calls himself or herself, but how a person responds to the love and will of God. We Christians have had more than our share of bigots. The problem is that God needs people of zeal to do his bidding. At the same time, the zealous per son can all too easily become an arrogant bigot. The fine line between these two roles is proba bly in being zealous because of what God has done for us, rather than because of what we think we can do for him. If we focus on our ideas, our experiences, our per spectives even our understand ings of what God wants we end up being impaled on our own egos and there is nothing sharper and more deadly. Zealousness will be harmful unless it is surrounded and grounded in humility. SELF-RIGHTEOUS PRAYER For all the good that he did, Nehemiah comes across as a self righteous man. In his prayer in chapter six, he recites rather proudly his accomplishments and goes on to ask God to “Remember Tobiah and Sanbalat, O my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophetess Noa diah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid” (6:14). Later he prays, “Remem ber me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his ser vice” (13:14). He ends the 13lh and last chapter with another pray er in which he commends himself to God: “Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign... Remember me, O my God, for good!” (13:30,31). (No sooner did I read those words than I found myself asking: “Have I ever prayed like that?” Have you?) Finishing the Book of Nehe miah, I breathe a sigh of relief and say, “Bring on the New Testament!” '"l 1 1^. k u L
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