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Show Most Win: famm 1f iifefci, ocar, Jasfgrasi, croata vent of deep well pumping In the late 1940's that really put Beaver County crops on the map. Mlnersvllle Jormed the first dairy co-op In the late 1930's, and farmers moved " their cattle twice dally to the barn for milking. As demand grew, the co-op grew, and the Mlnersvllle Cow Palace was built In the late 1960's. Individuals added their own milking barns, and today there are dozens of modern, well -equipped milking barns scattered throughout Beaver Beav-er and Mlnersvllle. Many milking upwards of 200 cows and almost every herd Is on DHIA testing. Beaver County notes several sev-eral of the top herds in the state and constant upgrading upgrad-ing Is necessary. The dairy industry uses artificial insemination, in-semination, and much of the dairy herd is raised locally. local-ly. Almost every dairy farmer boasts a few cows that produce over one hundred hun-dred pounds per day. Wayne Gilllns has one dairy cow he expects to set a new state production record this year. With the advent of ultra modern dairy barns, with nearly automatic equipment, at least three have gone to milking three tiroes per day, gaining as muchas20per-cent muchas20per-cent more milk. They are Gillins, Craw, and the Roberts Rob-erts Bros. Dairies . Dairy farming, which has quadrupled in the last decade, has contributed significantly sig-nificantly to the job market mar-ket In that period, with most of the fresh milk going to the Las Vegas area. However How-ever some Is distributed locally lo-cally by Cache Valley Dairy ' and used in making cheese at the Cache Valley Cheese Factory in Beaver. While artificial Insemination Insemina-tion is popular in the dairy industry, top range bulls are the pride of the beef Industry. Indus-try. Beaver County boasts more than it's share, and you will likely find some good examples at the Beaver bounty Livestock Show on Saturday, at the Mlnersvllle Fairgrounds. Cattlemen are happy to have grass grow underfoot, and are constantly involved in range reseed-lng reseed-lng programs. Given a free hand on BLM land, they would undoubtedly double the productivity pro-ductivity by chaining junipers juni-pers and reseeding. There are hundreds of miles of pipelines installed In the west desert. But the most radical change in the past decade has been in irrigated cropland. crop-land. From dirt ditches ' of the sixties and tractor -drawn hay equipment, the farmers have moved from grain and seed potatoes as cash crops, to mostly alfalfa, al-falfa, with markets all over the west and Japan. To do It, the farmer has moved to cement ditches, gated pipe, to sprinklers and now to huge overhead continuous con-tinuous moving sprinkling systems. There are few balers left, and most hay for export Is cubed In huge $85,-000 $85,-000 cubers. There is still some grain and seed potatoes raised, but alfalfa, once a rotation crop, Is the main cash crop, even though much of It finds its way to local dalrys. The high protein hay, which rare - is rain damaged is sought after, and there Is little hay left In the valley by the first cutting each June. But to make these radical changes has taken atremen-dous atremen-dous investment In equipment equip-ment and irrigation systems. Sometimes moving on to newer and better In just one or two seasons. Inflation has forced many changes as higher costs for labor, energy, pumping, equipment and land have forced farmers to find ways to do the job quicker, better bet-ter and with less labor. To add to the problem are the high interest costs, and if per chance they ever get caught up watch out for the income taxi But Beaver County farmers farm-ers are up to the task. Most enjoy their work and are proud of their accomplishments. accomplish-ments. They are already planning for the future, and one thing you can be sure of they will probably be first and best for many years to come. So, the next time you travel trav-el through the farming area, don't scoff at those poor dirt farmers. There Is gold in them thar fields green gold, and they do a better job of finding It than almost anyone we know. Equipment costs, land costs, energy costs, and labor have tripled in the last; en years. Interest rates are nore than double and energy :osts may be as much as five times what theywere in 1971,: but the Beaver- County: Farmer just shrugs and keeps doing what he knows best. And generally he does it better than anywhere else in the world. Often overlooked, and taken tak-en for granted, Beaver County agriculture Is the . number one employer, the largest exporter, and occupies oc-cupies the most land in the county. Lacking the glamour of railroading and tourism, and the quick fortunes of mining, "farming has been a part of local economy since the first settlers arrived. They produced pro-duced for local markets, and to survive. But in the be ginning gin-ning the small, dry farms were ameansof raisingmeat and vegetables for the fami-. fami-. ly, often after work in the mines or on the railroad. Ranching and Dairying have always been a part of Beaver County agriculture and history records as high as 50,000 cattle and sheep grazing the range, while; roost every farmed kept 10 to 15 cows and sold the excess ex-cess milk and cream, which was exported to metropolitan areas. The Taylor Grazing Act cut the grazing way back, today there are far more beef cattle and sheep than there are people in Beaver County. Reservoirs In the Tushar Mountains and the purchase of the water behind Mlnersvllle Mlners-vllle Dam opened the way to Irrigation, but it was the ad- |