AlO-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 21, 1992 OPINION Quotable Quotes About Agriculture - "Let the farmer forevermore be honored in his calling, for they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God." —Thomas Jefferson - "Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own." - "The philosopher's stone of an American farmer is to do every thing within his own family, to trouble his neighbors by borrowing as little as possible, and to abstain from buying European commodities. He that follows that golden rule and has a good wife is almost sure of succeeding." -J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Thoughts of an American Farmer on Various Rural Subjects, c. 1782 "The farmers are the founders of civilization and prosperity." •Daniel Webster - "No race can prosper until it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling afield as in writing a poem.” • "Drop a grain of California gold into the ground, and there it will lie unchanged until the end of time;... drop a grain of our blessed gold into the ground and lo! a mystery." •Edward Everett, address on agriculture, 1855. The reference is to wheat - “You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country." •William Jennings Bryan, Democratic National Convention, 1896 - "To plow is to pray to plant is to prophesy, and the harvest answers and fulfills." - “Whoever makes two cars of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more essential service to his country than the whole race of politi cians put together." - "The farther we get away from the land, the greater our insecurity." -Henry Ford - "A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with sense of humus." -E.B. White, “The Practical Farmer,” 1944 - "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the cornfield.” - “The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything he buys at retail, sells everything he sells at wholesale, and pays the freight both Mays.” Farm Calendar Saturday, March 21 Pennsylvania 4-H Week Woodlot and Wildlife Manage ment Workshop, Circle G Inn, Sixth Toastmasters’ Dauphin, 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. caster Farm and Home Center, Cecil County Farm Bureau ban -8:30 a.m. quet, Singcrly Fire Hall, Eastern Showcase Holstein Sale, Elkton. Fairhill Fairgrounds, Cecil Annual Forest Stewardship Land- County, Md., 11 a.m. , Lancaster Farming Established 19SS Published Every Saturday Ephrata Review Building 1 E. Main St Ephrata, PA 17522 by Lancaster Fanning, Inc. A SMnrmn Entfprkm Robert G. Campbell General Manager Everett R. Newswanger Managing Editor I*l W UmW Fvntn* -Booker T. Washington About Farming in Illinois -Dwight D. Eisenhower, Address, Peoria, 111., 1956 -John F. Kennedy campaign address, Sioux Falls, S.D., 1960 ' Bov, oncle: o NAD THIS QC FOR A LOT OF WHAT IS THE TO KEEPING MACHINERY i YEAR AFTER V AFTER YEA -Samuel Johnson -Robert G. Ingersoll, -Jonathan Swift To Practice Nutrient Management While Harrisburg is working on nutrient management legislation, farmers need to start working on their nutrient management plans now. By developing nutrient manage ment plans now. you will give yourself more time to implement your plans. If problem fields with nutrient levels are identified now. you will have additional time to develop a plan to deal with these fields. Changing crops grown, amount of fertilizer and manure applied, using a cover crop, and double cropping fields are ways you may use to reduce nutrient levels in soils or take advantage of surplus nutrients from animal manure. Nutrient management plans do not have to be very complicated process. Applying die quantity of nutrients needed to produce a crop is the underlying principle of nutri ent management To accomplish this, you need to soil test on a regular basis, know the nutrient content of your man ure and commercial fertilizer, and the nutrient requirement of the crops you are growing. For more information on nutri ent management, consult the 1991-1992 “Penn State Agronomy Guide” available at your county cooperative extension office. To Improve Barnyard Management Barnyards are very busy places on most farms. Over the years, many farmers have increased the number of livestock to remain pro fitable. However, the size of the barnyards often has not increased with the number of livestock. Unfortunately, this increased livestock activity may cause water quality and animal health prob lems if not properly managed. Jeff Stoltzfus, cooperative extension project associate, offers the following ideas on ways to improve barnyards: • Direct manure and runoff into a manure storage area. owners Workshop, Allen Hall, Mansfield University. 9 a.m.-l p.m. (Turn to Page A3O) • Direct clean water away from the barnyard. • Use rain gutters to direct roof runoff away from barnyards. • Terraces up slope of the budd ings direct water around barnyards. • If water needs to leave the bar nyard area, allow it to pass through a grass filter strip before it reaches a stream, road ditch, or other waterway. Barnyards are often the most visible part of any farm. A well managed barnyard will go a long way toward improving the image of farmers with their urban neighbors. To Understand The Five C’s Of Credit Alan Strode, extension farm management agent, reminds us the Hr LAWR t N C f W ALTHOU'jt f miyi Sffi Background Scripture: Mark 7:24-37. Devotional Reading: Amos 5:4-15 The story of Jesus and the Syro phoenician woman in Mark 5 is a troubling one. The problem is how to understand Jesus’ sharp rejec tion of the woman and her request for him to heal her daughter who was “possessed by an unclean spirit” Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (7:27). It is bad enough that Jesus turned down her humanitarian request, but we cannot help but be shocked when he likens the woman and her daughter in “rings”! What is the explanation? Scho lars offer several. One explanation is that Jesus really meant what he said, that he did not want to minis ter to the gentiles and that he shared the common Jewish per ception that non-Jews were “dogs” by comparison. This explanation has the weight of the obvious, for it is precisely what Mark tells us that Jesus said. Another explanation is that Jesus would not have responded like this not if the picture that we have of him in the rest of the New Testament is at all accurate but these words attributed to him by Mark represent the prejudice against gentiles that existed in the very ca'rlicst church. TO MIMIC & MOCK The third alternative which is the only one that is comfortable to me is that Jesus used these words to mimic and mock the popular sentiments of the day, per haps even the prevailing senti ments of his apostles, or that he used these words to engage the woman in a purposeful dialogue. In a sense, he could be halting her, to sec just how much faith could be mustered by this gentile. amount of debt you may carry depends on your credit worthiness. Lenders use the five C’s of cre dit to determine this worthiness. The five C’s are: 1. Character your personal characteristics and past history with debt repayment 2. Conditions of the loan. Is a necessity, need, or want? 3. Repayment Capacity includes cash flow projection, col lateral, and present market conditions. 4. Capital your net worth or difference between your assets and your debts. 5. Collateral How much of your collateral or assets are you willing to pledge to this debt? Feather Profs Footnote: "Get ting up after you have fallen down strengthens you muscles." Her response to his refusal would tell him a lot about her. There are several passages in the gospels in which this playful, bad gering style of Jesus is evident and I believe that is what is involved in this incident. And what did Jesus learn through this interchange? That gentiles can be just as persistent and ingenious in responding to the promises of the gospel. Jesus has made several efforts to demons trate to his followers that even believing Samaritans could be closer to the kingdom than them selves if they failed to respond in faith. This woman, a Syrian woman from the Phoenician wasn’t even a Samaritan, but a pagan Greek. Although she had not the benefit of the Jewish faith, her love for her baby and her per sonal belief in Jesus made the difference. There are limes when we need to do just what she did: to stub bornly persist with Jesus when the answer we’re getting doesn’t seem to be the answer we should be get ting. Whether or not she realized that Jesus was jousting with her, she persists without bitterness: “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table cat the children’s crumbs” (7:28). A TIME FOR HONESTY I don’t know how this woman knew that Jesus was more com passionate than he appeared to be at this moment. I know because, when I read of Jesus in the rest of the gospels. I see a Jesus who would not turn her away and who would never regard her and her child as “dogs.” So, if from our reading of the New Testament and sharing with other Christian peo ple tells us that the answer we seem to be getting from Jesus is not congruent with what we know of him, it is time for us to be hon est and say, “Wait a minute, Jesus, surely that is not what you mean to say to me!” If we do, Jesus will not be angered by our persistence, nor insulted at our honesty. If any thing, he is likely to say to us as he did to the woman; “For this saying you may go your way...” and that which we were seeking will be found.
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