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30 Tears a Phosphate ;:: 



User and Still ''Sold" 



^/^^^HIRTY years a user of rock 

 ^^"Y^ phosphate and still "sold" on 

 ^J it is the history of Roy G. 

 Wilcox of Kankakee County. 



Relating an early experience in this 

 work, Mr. Wilcox tells aix)ut his father- 

 in-law coming over one morning to get 

 five tons of phosphate and the spreader, 

 saying "The dam stuff won't do any 

 good anyway." 



In cleaning the phosphate spreader, he 

 made a wide turn in the field and next 

 summer, the clover there was 8-10 inches 

 higher than the rest. He called his 

 father-in-law back to see the demonstra- 

 tion. When he came, he looked it over 

 »nd said to Wilcox, "Well, that proves 

 it!" 



"This ground (brown silt loam with 

 a little sand) responds well to rock 

 phosphate," said Mr. Wilcox who spreads 

 about a carload per year. His usual 

 practice is to apply phosphate at the 

 initial rate of 1000 lbs. per acre on 

 corn stalk ground where clover is to be 

 seeded the following spring. He likes 

 barley as a nurse crop for alfalfa and 

 makes a practice of top dressing it with 

 phosphate. He has used commercial or 

 mixed fertilizers too, but said, "They 

 don't seem to pay out on this type of 

 soil." 



Roy Wilcox farms '520 acres of his 

 own land, supervises several more farms 

 and uses rock phosphate on all of them 

 because he finds it pays. He has devel- 

 oped a workable plan of phosphate ap- 

 plication with his tenants who bear a 

 share of the cost as they, of course, bene- 

 fit from the practice. 



Kankakee County was the first Illinois 

 county to erect phosphate storage bins. 

 These were built under the direction of 

 the late John Collier, Farm Adviser at 

 that time. The reason for their construc- 

 tion was that phosphate often could not 

 be satisfactorily obtained when wanted, 

 and also the price was lower in the 

 spring. The bins were cooperatively 

 erected. For a time they performed a 

 real service. Mr. Wilcox had charge of 

 the bin at Herscher and sold rock phos- 

 phate in small quantities for years to 

 many different farmers, saying "I can't 

 recall any being dissatisfied and we had 

 lots of repeat orders." 



The Marketing section of the AAA 



held a hearing in South Holland, Cook 

 county. 111. Dec. 28 to consider a pro- 

 posed agreement for onion set growers. 

 The lAA and Cook County Farm Bu- 

 reau have been active in getting the 



lUDGING SOYBEANS 

 niinoiB topped the entries at the Inter- 

 national hay and grain show in Chicago. 



onion growers, shippers, and AAA of- 

 ficials together toward putting prices 

 up above cost of proauction. This 

 area produces 83 per cent of all the 

 onion sets grown in the U. S. 



Bought Oil to 



Stabilize Market 



News reports from Madison, Wis. 

 where the government is prosecuting 23 

 major oil companies for an alleged price- 

 fixing conspiracy carried testimony by 

 Harold Parsons, assistant to the president 

 of the Tide Water Oil Company. Par- 

 sons testified that the company had pur- 

 chased gasoline from small refiners in 

 east Texas during the years that the gov- 

 ernment charges the major oil companies 

 were engaged in a conspiracy to raise and 

 fix midwestern gasoline prices. 



"The company purchased the gasoline 

 because it was required to supplement 

 our stocks and because we believe that it 

 was a good thing to endeavor to take 

 gasoline from east Texas and help to 

 stabilize the market," Parsons said. , 



Financial assistance in livestock feed- 

 ing operation's may be secured through 

 the loan departments of Producers 

 Commission Associations. The interest 

 rate is 5 per cent. To obtain a loan, 

 feeders must have previous feeding ex- 

 perience, enough feed on hand to com- 

 plete the program and a reasonably bal- 

 anced financial statement. 



Producers' 



C 



teantcT 



'f 



In 1938i fiscal years of all Illinois Pro- 

 ducers' Creameries will end September }0. 

 The change was made to provide a means 

 of comparing the activities of the nine 

 creameries on an annual basis, which will 

 give managers an opportunity to determine 

 weaknesses and strong points in their pro- 

 grams of operations. 



The Producers' Creamery of Mt. Sterling 



received 66.492 pounds of Grade A cream 

 in 10 months of 1937 as compared to ^3.8''6 

 pounds during the entire year 1936. 



Says T. H. Hafer, manager of Producers' 

 Creamery of Mt. Sterling, "A few years ago 

 producers were paying from 12 to 14 cents 

 per pound of butter to have their cream 

 taken from their can at a cream station and 

 put on the market in the form of butter. 

 Now producers are having their cream 

 picked up at the farm and marketed for 

 about eight cents a pound for butter. Isn't 

 that progress? What does it mean to you? 

 It means about $10 00 per cow per year!" 



Over a million pounds of butter were 

 churned by the Farmers Creamery of Bloom- 

 ington during ten months, December 1, 

 1936 to Sept. 30, 1937, according to Pres- 

 ident Harold Enns in his annual report pre- 

 sented Dec. II, to 800 producers and their 

 wives at the joint annual meeting of the 

 creamery and the McLean County Milk Pro- 

 ducers. 



The president also reported a decrease in 

 volume of cream but better prices, leaving 

 the organization in the best financial condi- 

 tion of its five years. He pointed out that 

 the company's current assets are 2'/2 times 

 its current liabilities. 



A six per cent dividend was declared on 

 preferred stock and patronage dividends of 

 eight-tenths of a cent to Farmers Creamery 

 members and an additional two-tenths of a 

 cent to members who are also Farm Bureau 

 members. The dividends totaled $8,032.12. 



Some Illinois farmers are losing 20 



bushels an acre on all the land they 

 have in corn because they use a variety 

 of seed that doesn't yield high under 

 their conditions ,says Prof. Geo. H. 

 Dungan of the University of Illinois 



A Chicagoan exploring the jungles of 



South America, is said to have invented 

 a weapon to protect him from injury 

 by large animals which leap upon their 

 prey. It is a six-foot curved knife 

 which he fastens to his boot and holds 

 upright in his hands. The blade splits 

 the skull of any animal that jumps 

 upon the wearer 



Cooking greens in an uncovered ket- 

 tle helps to preserve their bright green 

 color. 



Each year about 3,'00 people lose their 

 lives in farm fires. Property loss amounts 

 to about $100,000,000 annually. 



IRD 



JANUARY. 1938 



SI 



