Read it Again: Week of April 26, 2001.

80 years ago this week.

The Salem Flour Mills, Salem, Ohio, offered the following feeds in an advertisement: ground oats, $1.80/hundredweight; corn meal, $1.80/hundredweight; cottonseed meal, $1.90/hundredweight; oil meal, $2.40/hundredweight; cracked corn, $1.80/hundredweight; corn, 90 cents (10 bushels or more, 85 cents).

A 98-year-old Ohio man, Jacob Harner, took up his team’s reins to plow a field on his farm near Riven Rock, Fairfield County – just as he has for the past 80 years, except that he is breaking in a team of 4-year-old colts. He challenges any man in America to a day’s plowing contest, his only stipulation being that it shall not be “any newfangled eight-hour day, but a regular farmer’s day, from sunrise to sunset.” His rules for longevity are: “Be moderate in all things, and don’t worry.”

50 years ago this week.

One way to make farming pay is to have another source of income. Dick Gidley may thus be classified for he barbers in Salem five days a week. But by plowing before he goes to work and having a cooperative family, the 100 acre farm manages to support a number of income-producing animals. On his day off last Wednesday, Mr. Gidley began harrowing for three hours with a team. Not only would a tractor and all implements cost more than he would care to spend, but as he can get into the fields earlier, he is inclined to believe he is ahead of neighbors who are 100 percent mechanized.

Due to the high cost of feed, the low price that milk brings and the amount of work connected with dairying, Mr. Gidley often wonders why he keeps 33 head of cattle. His 11-year-old son, Hickorie, not only plows after school, but with his 12-year-old sister, Susie, feeds the cattle and milks 10 head of Ayrshire.

25 years ago this week.

On March 8, 1976, USDA reported 16 new outbreaks of cattle scabies in the USA. Scabies is a highly contagious form of mange that affects cattle and sheep caused by the psoroptic mange mite. Mites cause economic losses from hide damage and reduce feed efficiency, but they do not affect the wholesomeness of the meat. There is no public health hazard to this skin disease of livestock.