Tha Myers family gets together In the backyard during a sunny fall afternoon. Left to 

 right: Nuel, IS, Ralph, 18, Mr. Myers, Elaine, 13, and Mrs. Myers. 



PRODUCTION CREDIT 



-h 



TO THIS FARMER 



By JIM THOMSON 



Ass't. Editor, lAA RECORD 



BACK in 1938, Verne Myers owned 

 54 acres of pretty good Christian 

 county land. His net assets amounted 

 to around $8,000. Today, eight years 

 later, he is worth close to $45,000. 



The war, you say? 



Myers, a Farm Bureau member for the 

 past 15 years, says 'wo, mainly a com- 

 bination of good weather and the Pro- 

 duction Credit Association." 



You could probably give him a darned 

 good argument on his stand that the 

 war didn't have a great deal to do with 

 his prosperity but you couldn't find fault 

 if we added one other cause to "good 

 weather and the PCA" — in a word, 

 work — plain, old-fashioned, weary, 

 tiresome hours in the fields. 



In 1942 when the United Nations 

 were retreating on all major fronts and 

 Washington was begging for greater pro- 

 duction in farm and factory, Myers un- 

 dertook to farm 1,000 acres. 



Even without wartime shortages it 

 would have been a tremendous job, but 

 with the help of his family and hired 

 men driving tractors day and night, the 

 1,000 acres produced more than they ever 

 had. 



Myers, a husky, active, unassuming 

 man of medium height, settled himself 

 on the attractive sun porch of his com- 



fortable farm home and answered ques- 

 tions simply and directly. From an ad- 

 joining field across the road and the big, 

 well-kept, front lawn came the hum of 

 a tractor driven by his 18-year-old son 

 Ralph. 



"Some of my neighbors thought I 

 would go broke when I started farming 

 that thousand acres," Myers said with 

 a smile. "But I don't think I would 

 have been able to do it without Produc- 



tion Credit standing back of me. ' 



"How did you get started using Pro- 

 duction Credit Association loans.'*" 



Myers looked thoughtfully out across 

 the flat fields surrounding his home and 

 spoke slowly of a trip in 1938 he made 

 to Harrisburg where someone told him 

 how farm loans could be obtained from 

 PCA. 



"I inquired further at the Christian 

 county office at Taylorville," he said, 

 and borrowed $1,000 to buy a registered 

 bull and two cows. 



"It's a funny thing," he continued; 

 "you know it doesn't bother the average 

 farmer to put a mortgage on his land, 

 but for some reason or other he feels 

 embarrassed when he goes to ask PCA 

 for a chattel mortgage on a crop. In- 

 stead he will go somewhere else. 1 

 never let a chattel mortgage bother me." 



And Myers has never been afraid to 

 borrow money from PCA whenever he 

 thought it would help him with his farm- 

 ing operations. Besides obtaining PCA 

 loans to pay operating expenses, he also 

 has used them to buy livestock, seed, 

 farm machinery, electrical equipment and 

 furnishings for his REA-electrified home. 



Myers will tell you that Production 

 Credit loans are particularly adapted to 

 the needs of the small farmer. For al- 

 though he operated on a giant .scale 

 during the war years when it was the 

 patriotic thing to do, he owned only 54 

 acres the day he first asked for a PCA 

 loan. 



Today, as the owner of 240 acres, this 

 shrewd Christian county farmer knows 

 from experience that Production Credit 

 can help the small operator expand to 

 profitable proportions. He knows, too. 

 that PCA can make it possible for the 

 one-man farm to produce more profitably. 



Myers thinks it takes about a year to 

 become intimately acquainted with the 

 possibilities of Production Credit. Now 



he know 

 finance 

 In 1944 

 for equij 

 expenses. 



"The 

 Credit," 

 money ji 

 a nice ft 

 ries on 



\^ 



18 



L A. A. RECORD 



