OCR Text |
Show '42 Will Be Record Year For American Farm Crops Food Goals Are Raised to Boost Production As Agriculture's Part in Winning The War for U. S. and Allies. : -. -. ""4 ' -JT ."; til By BAUKHAGE National Farm and Home Hour Commentator. WNU Service, 1343 H Street, N-W, Washington, D. C. The farmer came across. He produced more the past year than any year in history. Never has America blossomed and borne fruit as she did. Next year the production produc-tion will be even higher for the department de-partment of agriculture found that the farmer was willing to meet the goals set up last August, and even to exceed them. But that doesn't mean that the food-for-victory problem has been Settled. Now the department of "atoiculture finds a part of the prob-back prob-back in its own lap, for we are in the war ourselves and our allies depend on us for supplies. The farmer farm-er must be assured labor, supplies and machinery to carry out his part of the job. And the processor must have the equipment to take care of perishable products when the farmer farm-er lays them down at the door. Experts here tell me that .the farm-labor problem is not unsolv-able. unsolv-able. The combined demands of war and industry mean that the farmer will have to put up with older hands, with less skilled farm hands. It means that schools will have to be dismissed at harvest time and when harvest time and cultivation time come together. It may mean a land army of women. But the farmer will get the help he needs, even if it isn't exactly the kind of help he would prefer. guns with their crews, like the one I can see from my window as I write, on top of buildings . . . more British reporters, no Japanese, German Ger-man or Italian newsmen ... a sign on the window of one of our many Filipino-driven taxis, "Philippines. U.S.A." explanation from the grinning grin-ning driver, "Best take no chances" (many people take the Filipinos for Japanese). Fur coats on government workers which will be the last for a long time . . . "Paw" (Brigadier General) Gen-eral) Watson, presidential secretary, secre-tary, in his uniform like hundreds of others . . . black paint around the edges of the broadcasting station's sta-tion's windows to keep the light from leaking out during blackouts . . . messenger-girls . . . tire-bootleggers and tire-thieves . . . traffic jams. Will the Horse Stage a Comeback? "My kingdom for a horse!" A lot of the people who own America's Amer-ica's 30 million vehicles may murmur mur-mur that wish before long. With sale of new autos and trucks banned pending rationing and with the rationing in effect, "My kingdom for a horse" may become no idle wish. And nobody knows today when the farmer will be told he can have no new farm machinery when what he has wears out Can Get Repairs The farmer can also get the parts he needs to repair his farm machinery. machin-ery. He will get some new machinery, enough to get by with. He may have to skimp a little on the nitrates and the phosphates although al-though at present there are reserve supplies. But the big problem is to provide the processor with the essentials he needs to prepare the food and to wrap it up in packages for the consumers. con-sumers. Take for instance milk: some 24 new evaporating plants will have to be built some 350 cheese factories will have to be put up. And PIGS! This year was a record rec-ord crop. Next year will be bigger. Will the packers be able to take care of the porkers which may be waddling up at the rate of a possible thousand a day to squeal their last squeals for freedom? That is one thing which the secretary of agriculture agri-culture is battling over now. It takes tin and stainless steel and a lot of other things which the army wants before you can change a pig into a portable meal. And the army is tighter than a Sunday shoe when it comes to yielding up any of those essential metals. It is interested chiefly in destroying, not preserving. Food Goals Raised The department of agriculture has raised the food goals already it has called for a 25 per cent boost in the tomatoes wanted; 33 per cent in snap-beans, corn and peas for canning. can-ning. Russia is very likely going to ask for food that we had not figured on supplying, China may need more. And then, who knows there may be an American Expeditionary Force, probably will be before we are through, which will have to be fed. Modern armies still move on their stomachs, but even in that position they cannot eat off the land as they used to. These extra, added demands were not in the cards when the original "food for freedom" goals were set up. But they will have to be taken care of. America's good earth can produce them, the farmers can and will raise them. The next thing is to wangle the means of putting them into the packages that will take them where they are going. It's a big job one of those which when done, will win the war. So the question naturally comes up, will the horse come back? In the city he just can't. Some cities won't allow horse-drawn vehicles vehi-cles on certain streets. Washington is one of them and not long ago a man drove an old-fashioned carriage with a team of mules down Sixteenth street just to see if he could get away with it. He did because after all, even a cop knows a mule isn't a horse. But the city man, even if he learns which end of the horse to put the crouper on, wouldn't have any place to park the animal he couldn't leave it out beside the curb all night the way many do their cars. On the farm the horse may become be-come a necessity. But his return will not be achieved overnight. In the first place every year with the increased mechanization of the farm, the supply of horseflesh has been dwindling. The situation isn't as bad as it was some years ago before be-fore vaccination scotched the sleeping sleep-ing sickness that threatened to reduce re-duce the equine population still further. fur-ther. But considering that it takes nearly four years after breeding before be-fore you get a horse in shape for regular heavy work, a market couldn't be built up to supply any increased demand for some time. It is true that in 1932 and 1933 when money was scarce and feed was cheap a lot of farmers used horses instead of trucks. But the American is a mechanical minded man and unless he just naturally takes to animals he would a lot rather drive a motor. As one horse expert said to me: "What's more a lot of folks are afraid of horses. Many men who will drive a farm truck 50 miles an hour nowadays would think he had a runaway on his hands if a team he was driving broke into a trot." On the more serious side of the question however, is the possible long-time demand of the army for essential materials that go into trucks and tractors and which may cut down perceptibly the machines that run farms today. A lot of farmers, farm-ers, like a lot of city people, really can't afford to own the machinery they have. It makes work easier. A horse is more trouble than a machine. ma-chine. But a machine is not always necessary to do farm work any more than a car is necessary to the city dweller to do the work his own father made a shank's mare do. Also, a horse can eat a lot of non-salable non-salable roughage, which food is much cheaper than gasoline is going to be while we need it for tanks and airplanes and army jeeps. The United States now has 100,000 civilian pilots at the end of 1941, or five times as many as it had on July 1, 1938. About 65,000 of the new pilots were trained in the Civil aeronautics administration program begun in 1939. Buy Defense Bonds Wartime Washington Crowded and Busy Wartime Washington . . . crowded crowd-ed press and radio conferences at the White House with no one admitted ad-mitted without a photographic pass, registered fingerprints or a special signed card issued only to known and guaranteed bearers. Special police, secret service men and two superintendents each from press and radio galleries to inspect each card ... a modification of the same system for entrance to all government gov-ernment buildings . . . anti-aircraft |