Farmers Lead 

 The War On 

 Animal Disease 



HELD for the first time at an annual 

 meeting of the Illinois Agricul- 

 tural Association was the confer- 

 ence on Safety, Public Health, and 

 Animal Health during the 1947 

 convention in St. Louis. 



In introducing the directors of the 

 lAA departments of public health and 

 safety — W. W. Whitlock, and the 

 department of veterinary medical re- 

 lations — Dr. Don Van Houweling, 

 Chairman Edwin Gumm, Knox county, 

 said: 



"Two of our newest departments of 

 the lAA, headed by two of our young- 

 est men, have been carrying on a val- 

 uable work, and are in a real position 

 to render service to our membership. 

 Let's avail ourselves of their services. 



Whitlock showed a film which de- 

 picted the apathy of farm people to 

 accidents and how it required a shock 

 to jar them into taking action. He 

 suggested that county Farm Bureaus 

 might want to do something about ac- 

 cidents in their counties by organizing 

 safety councils to keep farm safety con- 

 stantly before the farmers in the 

 county. A number of men in the 

 audience approved the idea. 



Dr. Van Houweling also showed a 

 film suggesting methods of preventing 

 the spread of mastitis among dairy 

 cattle. Van Houweling gave a short 

 summary of the activities of the veteri- 

 nary medical relations department in 

 which he likened the work of veteri- 

 narians as a war against disease. He 

 emphasized that the war against dis- 

 ease is never won completely, and that 

 the farmer himself is the commanding 

 officer in the campaign, and that the 

 veterinarians and extension workers 

 can help him only insofar as he would 

 avail himself of their services. 



Farm Adviser F. H. Shuman of 

 Whiteside county described what his 

 county had done in controlling mas- 

 titis. Shuman said greater cooperation 

 was needed by all the people involved 

 in the fight against animal disease. 



34 



A9 



Edwin Gumm, lAA director from Knox county, presides at tlie conference on safety, public 



healtli and animal healtli. At table ore Dr. C. D. Van Houweling, lAA veterinarian (left), 



and W. W. Whitloclc, lAA director of public health and safety. 



PMW FOOD iGo IS mn 



THE urgent need for the adoption 

 of a national soil fertility program 

 by Congress was graphically por- 

 trayed by Donald Kirkpatrick, legal 

 counsel for the Illinois Agricultural 

 Association and American Farm Bureau 

 Federation, at the national agricultural 



K. T. Smith 



H. E. Slusher 



legislation conference of the lAA's an- 

 nual meeting. 



There is now a critical shortage of 

 phosphorous and potassium, Kirkpatrick 

 declared. 'Tarmers are taking out of 

 the land five to six times the amount of 

 phosphorous they are putting back and 

 10 times as much potassium," he pointed 

 out. 



Kirkpatrick charged the fertilizer in- 

 dustry with delinquency in building more 

 plants to provide the needed supplies. 



"Although we have in the United 

 States 60 per cent of the phosphorus de- 

 posits of the world — enough to last for 

 a 100 years — there have been practical- 

 ly no additional plant capacities in the 

 last two and a hair years." 



Kirkpatrick also asserted that the plant 

 life of the corn belt is showing sub- 

 stantial deficiencies in phosphorus. 



Citing the great need of Illinois farm- 

 ers for additional fertilizer production, 

 Kirkpatrick reported that Illinois Farm 

 Supply Company had authorized the 



building of a $1,300,000 phosphate 

 acidulating and fertilizer mixing plant 

 near Fairmont City, Madison county. 

 This will be built on a 20-acre site along 

 U.S. Highway 40. The plant will have 

 a total annual capacity of 30,000 tons of 

 mixed goods and 20,000 tons of super- 

 phosphate. 



H. E. Slusher, president of the Mis- 

 souri Farm Bureau Federation, outlined 

 the proposed coordination of the soil 

 conservation activities to the conference. 



Slusher pointed out that under the 

 proposed program, Farm Bureau is in- 

 terested in getting the greatest amount 

 of soil conservation possible for the 

 money spent by the federal government. 

 Chairman of the conference was lAA 

 Director K. T. Smith, Greene county. 



SERUM CO-OP TO EXPAND 



(Continued from page 32) 

 the state serum cooperative has hired a 

 full time manager, Cecil F. Musser, who 

 had previously been manager of the Il- 

 linois Cooperative Locker Service. 



These refunds were paid on a volume 

 of 37,744,400 c.c. of serum and 3,140,- 

 375 c.c. of virus. This was compared 

 with the previous year of 39,492,725 c.c. 

 of serum and 3,362,900 c.c. of virus. 



McKee said that 12 counties handled 

 more than a million c.c. of serum last 

 year. They were Knox, Henry, Warren, 

 McLean, Fulton, Peoria, Pike, McDon- 

 ough, LaSalle, DeKalb, Marshall, and 

 Putnam. Knox was high with 2,067,000 

 c.c. of serum. 



Musser said that farmers have done 

 an excellent job in vaccinating their hogs 

 and controlling hog cholera. He said 

 the smallest number of trouble cases were 

 reported this year than any in the com- 

 pany's history. 



L A. A. RECORD 



L 



G. 



lAi 



lANl 



