[AT] Re: Potato Digger comments

[Mike Sloane]

I can't speak for the farms in PA or OH, but here in NJ what you see 
from the Interstate is not what you get. :-) Very few of the working 
dairy farms in my area use vertical silos any more - they either use 
ag-bags (silage packed into a long plastic tube that lies on the ground 
and is cut away as the bag is emptied) or bunker silage (silage placed 
on the ground and covered with huge plastic tarps held down with old 
tires. And you rarely see the cows out during the winter - there is very 
little for them to eat, and they just make a mess out of the pastures 
walking around and trying to tear up what little grass is there. Some of 
my neighbors put them out with a few bales to munch on while they clean 
out the stalls, but only for a short while.

Some of the dairy farms in my area have given up on dairy and gone over 
to just hay - milk prices are terrible, the co-ops in bad shape, and the 
price of hay seems to be holding very well. So you won't see much 
activity in January - except on Tuesdays when the local livestock/crop 
auction is in operation. I drove by it yesterday, and there were at 
least a dozen flatbed trailers loaded with square bales and waiting for 
the auction to start.

Mike

Indiana Robinson wrote:

> 	One of the things that struck us most on our recent trek across OH,
>  NY, MA, CT and PA and back home was the huge number of small farms 
> with several silos (some not very old) and cattle feeding setups but no cattle.
>  They appeared 
> to have been mostly dairy farms. Of course the cattle have almost disappeared
>  from here too but here on the edge of the prairie we have pretty deep
>  productive soils and corn, soybeans and wheat took their place. The farms 
> continue as farms. Many of those we saw in the north east looked like 
> no one was doing anything with them. As someone that grew up on the edge 
> of the prairie I just can't imagine trying to scratch out a living in all those rocks 
> without some kind of livestock. Those folks need to find a good market for rocks...   :-)

-- 
Mike Sloane
Allamuchy NJ
mikesloane at verizon.net
Website: <www.geocities.com/mikesloane>
Images: <www.fotki.com/mikesloane>

Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by
silence.  -Henri Frederic Amiel philosopher and writer (1821-1881)


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