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Show UTAH FARM BUREAU Page 4 TTh By Ken Rice our first tractor in Sure, tractors had been available for quite a while before that, but that's when we got ours. We Just had a little pea patch of a place not too far from town, where Dad had a city Job. Eight hours a day was enough for Dad; after that he wanted to breathe some clean air and get his fingers in the soil. We got 1947. We had wanted a tractor for a long time. The money was tight in the thirties; then the war came and you couldnt have bought one if you had the money. Besides, old Peggy the plowhorse did a good Job even if it was slow and she didnt seem to mind too much when we kids climbed all over her. Plowing that way is an experience that a whole generation of farm kids have missed. Stepping carefully along in the furrow, guiding a walking plow that sometimes seemed to have a mind of its own was something that stays with a man. Theres a flavor - - a taste about it. On a quiet, dewy morning (it was always dewy where we lived) I moved along gripping palm polished handles and peeled back the bed covers of the land. The earth, surprised at being awakened, gave up warm, moist smells that filled my head ith the promise of a rich harvest. And as I walked, with my trousers wet clear to the knee from the new grass and wild radish, Id sometimes scare up birds or uncover a den of field mice. In the furrow would be earthworms and scurrying beetles. The world was fresh and new, the soil was alive, and a man loved his land and felt close to God, plowing in the spring. A man is much more efficient, plowing with a tractor. A hundred horsepower tractor pulling an eight bottomed plow churns up a lot of acres in a day. The engine fumes make it a little hard to smell the damp soil and keeping the tractor travelling a straight line takes your attention away from the startled life in the furrows but farming is a business, and for all the romance a man needs to make a profit or hell be looking for another occupation. pd m D There is still opportunity for the farmer to stay close to nature, even though he may not have much time for that sort of thing while trying to stay ahead of the cost-pri- ce squeeze. The mechanical revolution has made it much easier for a man to convert his time into higher production. And theres a certain romance about these machines, too. I remember the way thatfirst tractor of ours smelled. It had a sweet, new smell of black rubber and shiny paint that lasted a long time. There was a lot of power and promise lingering around that tractor with its capable complement of implements. The disc, roller plow, and scraper could turn out a lot of work and permanently dispossessed old Peggy. The old walking plow was put aside to gather rust. You dont see many of those plows any more, excepting an occasional model pressed into service as a stand for the roadside mailbox. Our farm has long since given way to homes and gas stations. But the mechanical revolution we saw in the post war days is gathering even more momentum today. The revolution with its collection of machines makes hand labor more and more unnecessary. Labor disputes and crippling strkes in CalfironaJ spurred engineers and manufacturers to design more machines to handle harvesting chores previously done by hand. Like most up hating one and earliest weeds. The farm boys, I grew of my most frequent chores - - pulling chemical revolution has made this practice obsolete. Even a boys time is too valuable to spend pulling weeds one at a time. Todays chemicals kill weeds and insects, control plant growth and even thin seedlings. Chemical fertilizers provide balanced plant nutrients and even permit plants to grow without the soil through hydroponics, art of raising food in controlled of temperature, environments light and moisture. The plant nutrients in water are added to a the bed of gravel supporting plants. The fact that we rarely see worms in corn or apples any more is largely the result of the chemical revolution on the farm. I often think that the most startling farm revolution is the one that puts biology to work. Be brew at the Weber County outing the watchful eye of J. C. Hansen and Lorin Hardy. EVIL LOOKING G as is p 1 D i ginning with the development of hybrid plants for higher yields and disease resistance, the revolution has touched nearly every Todays phase of agriculture. scientist are even working to control Insects by releasing hordes of sterile male insects so that breeding wont result in even larger Insect populations. Todays broiler has nearly rev- olutionized the poultry industry. Through selective breeding the birds mature for market in much less time and on less feed than did their ancestors a few years ago. Scientists have been making great strides in selective breeding of dairy and beef cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry, resulting in lower production costs for meat, poultry, and dairy products. Plant scientist have developed more and more plants that will resist disease and give better yields, yields. Currently, scientists are trying to discover why some animals can eat grass while others cant. These same scientist who have built Imitation bacon from soybeans may have us all eating grass before long. The newest revolution on the farm may prove to be the most Its the important of them all. management revolution. As farm prices continue to drop while the prices of the things farmers buy go up, the squeeze on the farmer gets tighter and tighter. Farm people have been able to compete only through becoming more efficient, turning a profit by lowering production costs again and again. Were it not for the technical revolution on the farm, A mericas food costs would be much higher than they are today. Unfortunately, too many of our farmers are production specialists when they need to be managers. I remember Charlie Silva, our neighbor. He had about 65 of the hilliest acres in the area. Charlie tried many things to make a go of his land. He ran beef cattle, sheep and even raised Silver Belgian draft horses for use in parades. His biggest profit turned out to be a crop of junior executive houses on a big portion of the ground. The pattern farm too often is to sell all or part of the ground for purposes other than agriculture. The amount of land needed to be successful in farming is one of the most critical areas of the management revolution. homemade root beer under |