LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



PING PONG AND THE OPA 



I have read with pleasure and definite 

 understanding your article "Ping Pong, 

 Plows and the OPA" published in the June 

 issue of the Illinois Agricultural Associa- 

 tion Record, the state Farm Bureau publica- 

 tion. 



You are to be congratulated upon your 

 article in that it not only gives facts but 

 they are given in a language that all can 

 understand. 



We need more of such articles so that 

 our people may know better just what is 

 being done and what the results will be 

 and on whom to place the responsibility for 

 our failures in coming out from under un- 

 necessary control. 



— Dr. Charles O. Casey 

 Decatur, Illinois 



We join Dr. Casey in handing Larry 

 Simerl, lAA director of research and 

 taxation, a bouquet for a cleverly un- 

 derstandable article on the OPA. Do 

 we hear any objections to what Simerl 

 had to say in the June Record? Do you 

 favor letting the OPA die? 



TO SPRAY OR NOT TO SPRAY 



Have been looking at your "What's 

 Wrong With This Picture?" in the June 

 issue of the Record and want to call your 

 attention to one item on it. 1 note that on 

 the last page in answer to #53 that one of 

 the things that is supposed to be wrong is 

 that the trees are being sprayed after they 

 have borne fruit. 



That hurts my professional pride a bit 

 as we spend considerable time in the Fruit 

 Exchange encouraging growers to do a more 

 efficient job of spraying right up until har- 

 vest time. The man who made up the pic- 

 ture had a good idea, but he needs to be 

 razzed a bit about this one. 



Certainly there is nothing wrong with 

 spraying trees even though there is fruit on 

 them. Its done "in the best circles". 

 L. L. Colvis, Gen. Mgr. 

 Illinois Fruit Growers Exchange 



We're willing to take Larry Colvis' 

 word for this one since -he spends most 

 of his waking hours helping farmers pro- 

 duce and market the best possible fruit 

 crops. 



are glad to make it clear that he was 

 born and reared in Fulton county. 



; and 



more 

 with 

 more 



WE STAND CORRECTED 



In reading the page entitled, "Shorts in 

 the News," in the June issue, I noticed that 

 in the article telling of Edwin H. Hender- 

 son's appointment as assistant farm adviser 

 of Fulton county it was stated that Mr. 

 Henderson was from Lake county. Mr. 

 Henderson is a native of Fulton county. I 

 would appreciate it if a correction to this 

 effect could be made. 



J. E. Watt, Farm Adviser 

 Fulton County 



We understood Mr. Henderson had 

 spent some time in Lake county but 



1939. In effect, the articles advocated 

 flood control for the benefit of all the 

 people, pointed out that flood control 

 doesn't always provide the benefits it is 

 supposed to provide, and that the best 

 flood control methods are provided by na- 

 ture, i.e., mashlands and natural flood 

 plains with their valuable game preserves. 



AGAINST CONTROL PLAN 



Referring to your report on Army Flood 

 Control in the June Record. 



1 heartily approve the lAA position in op- 

 position to the Army plan, but the farmers 

 at Springfield have been making such a big 

 noise about this project, that everybody seems 

 to be overlooking a simple and perfect solu- 

 tion to the whole problem. 



(Editor's Note: The Illinois Agricultural 

 Association board of directors has expressed 

 opposition to the provisions of the flood con- 

 trot plan culling for the acquisition of farm 

 lands for reservoirs pending adoption of an 

 official position of the membership at the lAA 

 annual meeting in November.) 



It is really the comic strip of the entire 

 affair. The Army proposes in one breath to 

 make reservoirs on normally good farming land 

 in an attempt to prevent the flooding of the 

 natural flood plains of the Illinois River. 

 And then on top of that the Army plan pro- 

 poses to further straighten and deepen, the 

 Kankakee and Iroquois Rivers, partly in In- 

 diana and partly in Illinois, and thereby create 

 accelerated run off and floods to neutralize 

 what even they hope to accomplish by con- 

 struction of highland reservoirs. Rube Gold- 

 berg should draw a picture»of the Army Plan. 

 But getting back to cold hard facts. The 

 Kankakee River was straightened and deepened 

 30 years ago, and that has formed a continu- 

 ing source of flood water ever since, and sad 

 to relate, the land in Indiana, along the Kan- 

 kakee River is fast becoming a sandy desert 

 as it loses its moisture. They had raised a 

 little corn here and there, and those farmers 

 are all for making big dikes to keep the water 

 off their sandy farms, but the damage done 

 in Illinois each year far outweighs the value 

 of Indiana crops that resulted from the tragic 

 error made so many years ago. 



When this upriver flood producing plan 

 was presented to the public back in 1939, 

 I spent a lot of time studying the situation, 

 and presented my brief at the hearing held at 

 Momence August 15, 1939. The war stopped 

 the project for a time, but here it is again 

 proposing bigger and better floods. 



One man's ideas have no weight with the 

 Army, and I always felt that my brief and 

 appearance at the hearing was just time 

 wasted, but in view of the interest that you 

 have shown in opposition to this wasteful 

 plan, I enclose herewith two articles that I 

 wrote back in 1939, which served as the basis 

 for my more formal brief. 



As the directors of the lAA are opposed 

 to the reservoirs on good land in central 

 Illinois, I suggest that they explore the idea 

 of restoring the Kankakee marshes as a prime 

 water storage basin, at the expense of a few 

 submarginal farms, and make the marshes the 

 playground of Illinois and Indiana instead of 

 the blow sand desert that the army is trying 

 to create. 



— W. R. Sanborn, President, 

 Lehigh Stone Company 

 Kankakee, Illinois 



We are sorry lack of space prevents 

 us from including Mr. Sanborn's articles 

 written for the hearing at Momence in 



SUGGESTS FARM STRIKE 



The article that you printed about the 

 farmers having five main faults according to 

 a poll of the city people is all wet in no 

 uncertain terms. I have never seen a farmer 

 with these faults in my life. And I know 

 what I'm talking about because I have lived 

 around farmers all my life and I happen 

 to be a farmer's daughter. 



I have never heard farmers complain 

 about how hard they work. If there is any 

 complaining to be done, they should do it. 

 The farmer is one of the lowest paid per- 

 sons in the country. The city jake goes to 

 work at 8 or 8:30 in the morning and gets 

 off at 5 or 6 in the evening. But, the farmer 

 has to go to work at 6 or earlier in the 

 morning and doesn't come in until around 

 10 at night. Some nights it is later than 

 that. 



Poor managers, my eye. They ruin the 

 soil, phooey. They won't learn new meth- 

 ods, a lot of baloney. TTiere may be a few 

 poor managers among the farmers, but that 

 doesn't mean that they all are. I have seen 

 around two poor managers out of 50 farm- 

 ers. They ruin the soil. I'd like to see 

 one of the farms on which the soil has been 

 totally ruined. 



'You can't tell a farmer anything.' If 

 some city jake came out who didn't know 

 a thing about farming and tried to tell you 

 something that you know is wrong, what 

 would you do, go ahead and do as he says? 

 Well, I wouldn't. But if they have a point, 

 try to explain it. A farmer is willine to 

 listen to anything as long as it is a good 

 proposition. If it isn't, there isn't any sense 

 in wasting his good time that he could use 

 in the field on so trivial a matter. 



'The farmer gets too much money for 

 what he raises.' That is an overstatement 

 if I ever heard one. Here in the country, 

 all the coal mines and everything are strik- 

 ing for higher wages. They get twice as 

 much as the average farmer makes after his 

 expenses are taken out. Instead of demand- 

 ing higher prices for the products that they 

 raise, the farmers go around and weep on 

 each other's shoulders because they don't 

 get them. I say that they should demand 

 more. If they don't get it, strike like the 

 city people and see how long the dear little 

 city people could last without the farmer's 

 products coming in to them each day. Let's 

 see them swallow that one. 



As for the narrow and provincial part, 

 I have never seen a person like that before 

 in my life. 



Our city people don't know a farmer. 

 They wouldn't care to come out to the 

 country to get their dear little hands dirty 

 if they had to. This letter might hit on a 

 soft spot, but the one that it hits the hardest 

 is the one that it is meant for. If it wasn't 

 for the farmers, the city people would starve 

 and I'm not jest a bumping my gums neither, 

 chum. The city people should never com- 

 plain about the farmer. There are a lot of 

 faults of their own that they could corrert. 



. . Miss Ethel May Boggi 

 Sangamon County 



JULY-AUGUST. 1946 



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