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Show la ' f' i. . r i I Ilt)' TWINS. Alan and Alma Adams are learning management procedures at SUSC belore taking over the family farm in Parowan Valley in a couple of years. Grandsons to perpetuate family farm in Parowan other land is used to raise cattle and run some sheep. "Grandpa started out with a horse and had to hire a lot of men from Parowan to work the far-m," far-m," Alan said, " It takes a lot fewer people now than it did in his time." "In 50 years all 700 acres might be under cultivation with one man running nearly all of it," Alma added. There have been a lot of changes on the Adams farm over the past 64 years and the twins' grandmother, Barbara Adams, has seen it all. Since her husband Hugh bought the land, "Aunt Barb", as the 91 year old Parowan resident is commonly called, seems to take farm technology in stride. "She's more excited about man walking on the moon and going to Brian Head in the middle of winter. I think she's less amazed about changes on the farm than we are," Alma said. "Book learning and farming are so different. Sometimes it sounds easy on paper but when you actually start working at it, you're pretty much on your own," Alan said. "We still listen to the old farmers; they really know their business. The; can spot a storm fasti i than the weatherman," Alma said. "We expect hard times and bad years but we'll never be out of a job-people always have to eat." Grandfather Hugh started out with a horse. Now his grandsons are into complicated machinery and management procedures but aren't fooling themselves about farming being any easier than it was 50 years ago. When Alma and Alan Adams take over the family farm in a couple of years, they'll incorporate in-corporate good management procedures learned at Southern Utah State College with old-fashioned old-fashioned hard work-that part of farming that remains constant. The 21 year old twins will work the 700 acre farm located five miles north of Parowan, originally purchased by their grandfather, Hugh L. Adams, in 1911 and passed down to their father, Roy Adams. When Roy died several years ago, a cousin, Herman Adams, took over until the twins can take the controls. "We won't have the initial cost of purchasing the farm so it seems to be a pretty good prospect to make a living," Alan said. When their grandfather purchased pur-chased the land around the turn of the century, the majority of American families lived on farms. The twins are statistically listed in the less than five percent of the population choosing farming far-ming as a vocation today. "Farming calls for more management and improved practices now," Alma said. "We're at SUSC to learn modern farming techniques because we recognize the importance im-portance of more management and improved practices if we're going to make a living," he continued. Both are enrolled in the agriculture technical certificate program at SUSC. Both took time to fill LDS missions before coming to college, Alan going to Ireland, Alma to Scotland. "Because we know what we're going to be doing, school is probably easier for us than for some students who don't know what they want to do yet," Alan said. "Farming as a profession is changing really fast; just look at the changes in baling hay in the last five or six years. We'll probably drill a new well, enlarge operations some but who knows what we'll be doing in ten years," Alma said. Three hundred acres of the total farm are presently under cultivation for hay and barley |