Gas prices
 

Maxprop wrote:
"Thom Stewart" wrote

Transport is only part of the picture. Growing and transporting enough
corn to
make a gallon of ethanol, then actually making it, consumes mucho energy
itself - some claim it takes more energy to produce than we can get back
out of
it.

Who could that be. Could it be . . . oh, I don't know . . . maybe . . . BIG
OIL??!!!

I don't know if that's true but I do know that a tractor plowing a field,
or even just disking and planting "no-till" corn uses more fuel than most
folk
can imagine. The exact figures escape me but maybe one of y'all know.
Also,
farming is about as dangerous as mining.

Well, maybe we should be harnessing cow farts in order to offset the expense
and grave danger of raising corn.

Katy wrote:

So, Mr. Doom and Gloom...there's no answer in fossil fuel...and there's no
answer in vegetable fuel. Are you going to be the first to offer yourself
up in sacrifice or do you just advocate sitting around watching as
humanity collapses? Nah...don't answer that. I already know your answer.

Thom, the retired oil refinery worker, might be a bit biased, Katy. Then
again, he's maybe just counting on the fact that he won't be around to see
the disaster that dwindling petroleum reserves will eventually be for our
ancestors.

Max


I was responding to Vito, not Thom.

Gas prices
 

Vito wrote:

"Martin Baxter" wrote
Hmmm, not sure about your chemistry here Vito, Nitric acid, HN03, you
need hydrogen too, and that's not coming from the air.

Ah, but it is - in the form of water vapor (fog) which mixes with the nitric
oxide to mke acid.

Well, what we are really talking about is the creation/emission of
nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (N02) and nitrous oxide (N2O), not
nitric acid (HNO3. The nitric acid thing happens in the atmosphere and
forms acid rain. After doing a little research you are basically
correct, the rate of formation of nitrogen oxides is related to
compression ratios, has to do with heat of the reaction and rate of burn
apparently.

Interestingly the catalytic converter which reduces NO and NO2, both
contributors to smog may actually increase the production of nitrous
oxide. Nitrous oxide is not regulated by the Clean Air Act as it is not
considered to contribute to smog formation. It is however considered to
be nasty greenhouse gas, over 300 times as potent as carbon dioxide.

Cheers
Marty

Gas prices
 

"katy" wrote
They did a study of the Amish farmers in the southern Michigan and
northern Indiana area and found that for small farms, those under
300 acres, that Belgian horses were more efficient than tractors.
One of the factors was that a horses weight on the soil does not rip
it up like the heavy tread of a tractor.

There is some truth in this. FWIW circa 1968 I used "no-till" to grow corn for
my cattle. Plowing is for weed control, the freeze-thaw cycle naturally
prepares the soil for planting, and plowing is hideously expensive in fuel, time
and wear & tear on machinery. I'd spread rye grass seed on the snow followed by
manure. The manure sank through the snow carrying the seed with it. Come early
spring the rye grew knee high and kept the soil shaded and moist. Then I
poisoned the rye with a non-persistent herbicide and it lodged up into a mat
that allowed me to drive a flotation tired tractor over the very wet soft soil
pulling a light planter. After harvesting the corn in the fall, I'd disk the
stalks into the soil but never plow. Had the same or better yield/acre as
conventional plowing. I'd have loved to farm like the Amish but it would be
impossible to produce enough crops to feed our current non-farming population
today - let alone grow enough corn to make enough ethanol - using horse and
buggy technology. We'd have to force modern Americans off welfare and make them
(gasp) work like illegal aliens just to provide the manpower. Never happen!!

Gas prices
 

Vito wrote:
"katy" wrote
They did a study of the Amish farmers in the southern Michigan and
northern Indiana area and found that for small farms, those under
300 acres, that Belgian horses were more efficient than tractors.
One of the factors was that a horses weight on the soil does not rip
it up like the heavy tread of a tractor.

There is some truth in this. FWIW circa 1968 I used "no-till" to grow corn for
my cattle. Plowing is for weed control, the freeze-thaw cycle naturally
prepares the soil for planting, and plowing is hideously expensive in fuel, time
and wear & tear on machinery. I'd spread rye grass seed on the snow followed by
manure. The manure sank through the snow carrying the seed with it. Come early
spring the rye grew knee high and kept the soil shaded and moist. Then I
poisoned the rye with a non-persistent herbicide and it lodged up into a mat
that allowed me to drive a flotation tired tractor over the very wet soft soil
pulling a light planter. After harvesting the corn in the fall, I'd disk the
stalks into the soil but never plow. Had the same or better yield/acre as
conventional plowing. I'd have loved to farm like the Amish but it would be
impossible to produce enough crops to feed our current non-farming population
today - let alone grow enough corn to make enough ethanol - using horse and
buggy technology. We'd have to force modern Americans off welfare and make them
(gasp) work like illegal aliens just to provide the manpower. Never happen!!


See? There are answers to this...ut's just that no one's willing to
implement them.
Those on welfare should have to go to a specific location every day
where work (farm or otherwise) is available. They would be provided
a chit for the days work to take back to the welfare office. if
they refused work (they would be permitted to allow for infirmities
and redirected into something they could do) their welfare is
decreased. Another good that would come out of this is that all
corn production (except for sweet corn for the table) would be
diverted to fuel. Corn meal is not a healthy whole grain and
Americans eat way too much of it. Corn syrup is added into most
processed foods as a sweetener. Divert to sugar beet for sweeteners
on a commercial basis. Sugar beet grows where corn won't and the
pulp is usable for feed lot filler.

Gas prices
 

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 04 May 2006 13:24:50 -0400, katy
said:

Academic? There's plenty of valid literature out there regarding
small agribusiness (the family farm) and how worthwhile it would be
to pursue maintaining and increasing small farms.

Katy, I grew up in farming country. Even in the 50s the 174 acre farm he
posits as the maximum size would never have been economically viable when
compared to those around it. There's a reason why the size of farms has
grown.

And that reason is lack of labor. We all know that slaves once provided it on
big plantations. Our dirty little secret is that one's own kids provided it on
"family farms". Every generation the farmer wore out several wives producing a
dozen or more kids who did the same work as slaves on 'massa's plantation for
the same wage. Every generation the eldest inherited the farm, married one of
the girls next door (or his half-sister) and began his own crop of slaves. These
displaced the farmer's siblings who ended up in city sweat shops where a few
lived to be as old as 30. That's one reason average life expectancy was so low.
Now we rely on machines instead.

No matter how nostalgic one wishes to wax, the case for the small family
farm is based on emotion, not economics.

And misguided emotion at that. Check out some old family graveyards. You'll
find a father then his son then his son, and so on. In between each one you'll
find 3 or 4 wives plus some kids, worked to death. Then wonder what happened to
the dozen or so kids each generation who are not buried there. I'll take a
tractor and combine over that any day! Folks who yearn for the family farm have
never put up hay grin.

Gas prices
 

"Scotty" wrote.
A guy down the road from me uses 12 (horses), side by side ( single
row) for plowing. Looks cool!

12 horses to plow a single row gives one an idea of how much fuel a tractor uses
to plow an acre for corn, and why ethanol may take more energy to produce than
it can yield back.

Gas prices
 

"Maxprop" wrote

Transport is only part of the picture. Growing and transporting enough
corn to
make a gallon of ethanol, then actually making it, consumes mucho energy
itself - some claim it takes more energy to produce than we can get back
out of it.

Who could that be. Could it be . . . . BIG OIL??!!!

That doesn't make it false. Do your own math. Google up how much fuel it takes
to grow a bushel of corn then ferment it then distill off the ethanol and how
many gallons we get per bushel.

Well, maybe we should be harnessing cow farts in order to offset the expense
and grave danger of raising corn.

And after doing that look up the accident & death rate from farming.

Thom, the retired oil refinery worker, might be a bit biased, Katy. Then
again, he's maybe just counting on the fact that he won't be around to see
the disaster that dwindling petroleum reserves will eventually be for our
ancestors.

That'll be a minor annoyance compared to what'll happen if our population keeps
growing.

Gas prices
 

"Maxprop" wrote
Noteworthy is that we passed the $2.70 per gallon barrier earlier this year.
A smart society or government would consider adopting a program of
progressive ethanol replacement, but my guess is that it's going to take a
miracle of some sort to convince our government to act. And of course we
face the constant barrage of lobbying and disinformation by Big Oil. Money
talks, logic walks.

A bit over a year ago I went to the MD with a sore throat that turned out to be
cancer, but the MD screwed around trying to lower my blood pressure until his
medicines gave me heart trouble. By the time I quit taking his prescriptions
and got a different MD a few month later I only had a 1 in 5 chance of survival.

Fretting over oil and ethanol is like worrying over minor hypertension while
your patient dies of cancer. Our cancer is overpopulation. Cure it and all our
other problems become manageable. Ignore it and we face a global Easter Island
disaster whether we switch to ethanol or not.

Gas prices
 

Dave wrote:
On Fri, 5 May 2006 12:54:33 -0400, "Vito" said:

I'd have loved to farm like the Amish but it would be
impossible to produce enough crops to feed our current non-farming population
today - let alone grow enough corn to make enough ethanol - using horse and
buggy technology.

Katy's argument, of course, is that that type of farming would be as
efficient as the type that now prevails.


http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo...m/art2570.html

Gas prices
 

Vito wrote:
"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 04 May 2006 13:24:50 -0400, katy
said:

Academic? There's plenty of valid literature out there regarding
small agribusiness (the family farm) and how worthwhile it would be
to pursue maintaining and increasing small farms.
Katy, I grew up in farming country. Even in the 50s the 174 acre farm he
posits as the maximum size would never have been economically viable when
compared to those around it. There's a reason why the size of farms has
grown.

And that reason is lack of labor. We all know that slaves once provided it on
big plantations. Our dirty little secret is that one's own kids provided it on
"family farms". Every generation the farmer wore out several wives producing a
dozen or more kids who did the same work as slaves on 'massa's plantation for
the same wage. Every generation the eldest inherited the farm, married one of
the girls next door (or his half-sister) and began his own crop of slaves. These
displaced the farmer's siblings who ended up in city sweat shops where a few
lived to be as old as 30. That's one reason average life expectancy was so low.
Now we rely on machines instead.
No matter how nostalgic one wishes to wax, the case for the small family
farm is based on emotion, not economics.

And misguided emotion at that. Check out some old family graveyards. You'll
find a father then his son then his son, and so on. In between each one you'll
find 3 or 4 wives plus some kids, worked to death. Then wonder what happened to
the dozen or so kids each generation who are not buried there. I'll take a
tractor and combine over that any day! Folks who yearn for the family farm have
never put up hay grin.



Most often the wives died of puepheral fever (childbed fever) and
the children of measles, mumps, etc. You have a very jaded view of
family farm life. My family farmed. No one died of slave labor.
My paternal grandmother not only raised 5 kids (4 college graduates)
but also was the church organist. The kids were required to work,
sure. Did it do them any har,? Guess not, since they were a;l
successful in later life and had an excellent work ethic. Their life
was hard. We grew up hearing the stories about the Depression. The
saving grace was that they were farmers, so at least had food on
their table and a roof over their head. On the other side, my
maternal grandfather came from a plantation in Missouri. They freed
their slaves when the Emancipation Proclamation was published. The
farm is still being farmed (dairy and wheat) and the family
graveyard stills stands in tribute to my ancestors. Your
interpretation of the family farm smacks of revisionism.

Gas prices
 

"Vito" wrote in message
...
"Scotty" wrote.
A guy down the road from me uses 12 (horses), side by
side ( single
row) for plowing. Looks cool!

12 horses to plow a single row gives one an idea of how
much fuel a tractor uses
to plow an acre for corn, and why ethanol may take more
energy to produce than
it can yield back.


No, stupid, the horses were in one row.

Gas prices
 

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 04 May 2006 23:10:52 GMT, "Maxprop" said:

Then
again, he's maybe just counting on the fact that he won't be around to see
the disaster that dwindling petroleum reserves will eventually be for our
ancestors.

Too late for our ancestors, Max. It's our descendants you need to
consider.

LOL. I just got done watching the last two episode of Star Trek: The Next
Generation, in which time reversed. Brain fart.

Max

Gas prices
 

"Mys Terry" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 5 May 2006 13:48:21 -0400, "Vito" wrote:

"Maxprop" wrote
Noteworthy is that we passed the $2.70 per gallon barrier earlier this
year.
A smart society or government would consider adopting a program of
progressive ethanol replacement, but my guess is that it's going to take
a
miracle of some sort to convince our government to act. And of course
we
face the constant barrage of lobbying and disinformation by Big Oil.
Money
talks, logic walks.

A bit over a year ago I went to the MD with a sore throat that turned out
to be
cancer, but the MD screwed around trying to lower my blood pressure until
his
medicines gave me heart trouble. By the time I quit taking his
prescriptions
and got a different MD a few month later I only had a 1 in 5 chance of
survival.

Fretting over oil and ethanol is like worrying over minor hypertension
while
your patient dies of cancer. Our cancer is overpopulation. Cure it and all
our
other problems become manageable. Ignore it and we face a global Easter
Island
disaster whether we switch to ethanol or not.


AMEN!

Agreed.

Max

Gas prices
 

Scotty wrote:
"Vito" wrote in message
...
"Scotty" wrote.
A guy down the road from me uses 12 (horses), side by
side ( single
row) for plowing. Looks cool!
12 horses to plow a single row gives one an idea of how
much fuel a tractor uses
to plow an acre for corn, and why ethanol may take more
energy to produce than
it can yield back.


No, stupid, the horses were in one row.




I was rteing to figure that out...you are referring to a 12 hp
tracotr, correct?

Gas prices
 

"katy" wrote in message
...
Scotty wrote:
"Vito" wrote in message
...
"Scotty" wrote.
A guy down the road from me uses 12 (horses), side by
side ( single
row) for plowing. Looks cool!
12 horses to plow a single row gives one an idea of how
much fuel a tractor uses
to plow an acre for corn, and why ethanol may take more
energy to produce than
it can yield back.


No, stupid, the horses were in one row.




I was rteing to figure that out...you are referring to a
12 hp
tracotr, correct?

No Darlin, they still use pull horses around here.

You start talking like a Southern Belle , yet. When I used
to spend time down south I'd start talkin with a bit of a
Southern drawl.

Scotty

Gas prices
 

Scotty wrote:
"katy" wrote in message
...
Scotty wrote:
"Vito" wrote in message
...
"Scotty" wrote.
A guy down the road from me uses 12 (horses), side by
side ( single
row) for plowing. Looks cool!
12 horses to plow a single row gives one an idea of how
much fuel a tractor uses
to plow an acre for corn, and why ethanol may take more
energy to produce than
it can yield back.

No, stupid, the horses were in one row.




I was rteing to figure that out...you are referring to a
12 hp
tracotr, correct?

No Darlin, they still use pull horses around here.

You start talking like a Southern Belle , yet. When I used
to spend time down south I'd start talkin with a bit of a
Southern drawl.

Scotty


Well, suh....I cain't figger that one t'all...onlt takes 2 horses
from where I'm from to plwo a furrow....

Gas prices
 

"katy" wrote
Those on welfare should have to go to a specific location every day
where work (farm or otherwise) is available. They would be provided
a chit for the days work to take back to the welfare office. if
they refused work (they would be permitted to allow for infirmities
and redirected into something they could do) their welfare is
decreased.

RR tried something like this when governor of California. Those facing work got
sympathetic shrinks to declare laziness a debilitating mental disease then
judges to agree. Thus if one is too lazy to work, the government can't make him.

Gas prices
 

Vito, I think Scotty was speaking of the arrangement of the team, not
the amount of rows plowed per pass. A huge team like that would plow
6-8 rows per pass. Your a city slicker like Robert right?

Capt. Suzy
35s5
NY

Gas prices
 

Vito wrote:

"katy" wrote
Those on welfare should have to go to a specific location every day
where work (farm or otherwise) is available. They would be provided
a chit for the days work to take back to the welfare office. if
they refused work (they would be permitted to allow for infirmities
and redirected into something they could do) their welfare is
decreased.

RR tried something like this when governor of California. Those facing work got
sympathetic shrinks to declare laziness a debilitating mental disease then
judges to agree. Thus if one is too lazy to work, the government can't make him.

That and the sytem is open to explotation the other way around, why pay
prevailing wage for manual labour whe you can get throught the local
welfare office at very nearly slave wages?

Cheers
Marty

Gas prices
 

Martin Baxter wrote:
Vito wrote:
"katy" wrote
Those on welfare should have to go to a specific location every day
where work (farm or otherwise) is available. They would be provided
a chit for the days work to take back to the welfare office. if
they refused work (they would be permitted to allow for infirmities
and redirected into something they could do) their welfare is
decreased.
RR tried something like this when governor of California. Those facing work got
sympathetic shrinks to declare laziness a debilitating mental disease then
judges to agree. Thus if one is too lazy to work, the government can't make him.

That and the sytem is open to explotation the other way around, why pay
prevailing wage for manual labour whe you can get throught the local
welfare office at very nearly slave wages?

Cheers
Marty

That's the point, Martin...you can't get laborers at the prevailing
wage. A vast majority of those on welfare have bought into what the
education system has piped into their minds in the last 20
years...there own personal sense of self-worth dictates that they
will not get their hands dirty and that they, too should receive
huge wages for menial work Or worse, that they are above menial
work. They forget, or were never taught, that many people who made
it in the US system, started out as menial laborers. There
self-worth does not come from a hard work ethic or from seeing the
fruits of their labors, but from absorbing propaganda. I have always
been a great proponent of a national system, sort of like what the
Israeli's have, where a person, on finishing high school, either
goes into the armed services or joins a group like VISTA...Soputh
Korea does this. You receive a university education by fulfilling
either military or domestic service. My daughter-on-law served hers
during the Asian games and the Olympics as an interpretor.

Gas prices
 

"katy" wrote
Most often the wives died of puepheral fever (childbed fever) and
the children of measles, mumps, etc. You have a very jaded view of
family farm life.

Geeze, you got so worked up your typo rate increased. We are talking apples and
oranges.

Go back before your grandfather - to the heyday of the "family farm" in the
early and mid 1800s before machinery reduced the need for labor. Yes, most often
wives died in childbirth, died to produce the crop of laborers needed to make a
"family farm" a viable economic unit. The kids who died on the farm were the
lucky ones. Their siblings were forced off the family farm by their nieces and
nephews who took their places doing the chores without pay. They ended up dying
young in big city sweat shops and opium dens over a "pipe dream".

By the time you speak of, machinery had replaced the big family and made family
farms inefficient. Until then the size of a farm without slaves was limited by
the number of kids the farmer had to do his work. One man with a spade can only
tend a garden. One man with draft animals and 15 kids can farm 160 acres or
more (the basis of 'townships') but he'll kill 3 wives to get them. OTOH, with
two tractors, a planter and a combine, plus a mower and bailer, and no kids, I
raised enough corn and alfalfa to feed 800 feeder calves while working a full
time 40hr/week job to boot. Had I worked the farm exclusively, I could have
farmed four times the acreage or more. That's the modern economic farm unit.
The "family farm" cannot compete with it any more than a smith can compete with
a factory.

But that made me a "farmer" in name only - I spent more time maintaining
machinery and feeding cattle than planting and harvesting. And I certainly
wasn't a "family farmer" (My wife & daughter wanted no part of it!). No, I
"share cropped" the cattle part of the operation on 270 acres, buying weaned
calves and feeding them out to slaughter, and leased I several similar farms
from folks like your grandparents to grow grain and fodder for them. I don't say
none exist but I don't know any "family farmers" nowadays except the Amish.

So, while your grandparents may not have had quite as efficient and modern
equipment as I, they didn't need 15 (or 5) kids to make a viable economic unit.
So their (and my) operations were more akin to factory farms than to the family
farms of the 19th century. They (and I) didn't have a family farm, they were
merely a family living on a farm. Many families doing that today own the land
but hire "custom pickers" to plant and harvest their crops. It's easy to be
nostalgic for such an existence. But they are no more "family farmers" than a
factory owner is a blacksmith. If he is, it's a hobby.

Yes they were lucky to have the farm. Many overmortgaged theirs in the
preceeding inflationary boom to buy more land and machinery. Then with deflation
they had a farm worth far less than the mortgage and an income less than the
payment. So the bank forclosed and the farm sat fallow while people starved.

Gas prices
 

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 05 May 2006 14:17:51 -0400, katy
said:

Your
interpretation of the family farm smacks of revisionism.

Have to agree with you on that one, Katy. Vito's version of the facts bears
no relation whatever to what I observed.

That's because, other than the "communistic" Amish, there are no "family farms"
today. So neither of you have seen one any more than I have even though we both
farmed. We're over 100 years too late.

Gas prices
 

"Scotty" wrote in message
...

"Vito" wrote in message
...
"Scotty" wrote.
A guy down the road from me uses 12 (horses), side by
side ( single
row) for plowing. Looks cool!

12 horses to plow a single row gives one an idea of how
much fuel a tractor uses
to plow an acre for corn, and why ethanol may take more
energy to produce than
it can yield back.


No, stupid, the horses were in one row.

So, asshole, how many 18" deep furrows i he plowing??

Gas prices
 

Nice little story, Vito. You're making your life story the basis for
everyone? My grandfather farmed with Percheron teams. On;y tractor
they ever owned was a Gravely hand tractor for the vegetable garden.
And BTW, it wasn't only farm wives and farm children dying back
before the turn of the century, it was everybody. Farming had
nothing to do with it, the lack of medical knowledge, antiseptic
processes, and disease was responsible. And I do know family farmers
in Michigan. They are not a lost breed.

Gas prices
 

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 5 May 2006 13:48:21 -0400, "Vito" said:

Our cancer is overpopulation. Cure it and all our
other problems become manageable.

Hmm. Seems like there was a fella with initials TM saying that about 200
years ago. He wasn't such a good prognosticator.

Not sure who TM was but look what we have lost to overpopulation in that time.
And the curve is nearly vertical now.

Gas prices
 

Vito wrote:
"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 05 May 2006 14:17:51 -0400, katy
said:

Your
interpretation of the family farm smacks of revisionism.
Have to agree with you on that one, Katy. Vito's version of the facts bears
no relation whatever to what I observed.

That's because, other than the "communistic" Amish, there are no "family farms"
today. So neither of you have seen one any more than I have even though we both
farmed. We're over 100 years too late.


That's such baloney. In West Michigan, there are still plenty of
family farms, many of them orchards and dairies. I could name names
and give you addresses.
http://www.michiganfarmbureau.com/fa...centennial.xml

Go to the MI Farm Bureau site. They are proponents of strong family
farms over corporate and agri-business afrms as the anchor for
agriculture in the state.

Gas prices
 

"Vito" wrongly wrote

That's because, other than the "communistic" Amish, there
are no "family farms"
today.


Liar!

Gas prices
 

"Vito" wrote


No, stupid, the horses were in one row.

So, how many 18" deep furrows i he plowing up my
asshole??


???

Gas prices
 

In article , Dave
wrote:

On Mon, 8 May 2006 12:47:32 -0400, "Vito" said:

Hmm. Seems like there was a fella with initials TM saying that about 200
years ago. He wasn't such a good prognosticator.

Not sure who TM was but look what we have lost to overpopulation in that
time.

Thomas Malthus. If his predictions had been correct, the entire planet would
have died of starvation long ago.

Yes. The old 'food resourse grows arithmetically, population growth
geometrically (or exponentially, I forget)'.

He's been wrong because technology has enabled us to grow a *lot* more
food, and in 1st World countries, the population is not growing
exponentially. Indeed, it's levelled off at or below replacement rate,
if you ignore immigration. As for the 3rd World countries, really, they
don't count - so far. China's effect is fascinating but predictable,
and was predicted.

Nonetheless, we now *have* to have high tech and a lot of energy to
sustain the population we have. Which is why I reckon we'll go to
nuclear power, because the alternatives are worse.

PDW

Gas prices
 

"SUZY" wrote in message
ups.com...
Vito, I think Scotty was speaking of the arrangement of the team, not
the amount of rows plowed per pass. A huge team like that would plow
6-8 rows per pass. Your a city slicker like Robert right?

Naw, just too poor to have plowed with a horse. Now an ox .....

Gas prices
 

"katy" wrote in message
...
Nice little story, Vito. You're making your life story the basis for
everyone? My grandfather farmed with Percheron teams. On;y tractor
they ever owned was a Gravely hand tractor for the vegetable garden.
And BTW, it wasn't only farm wives and farm children dying back
before the turn of the century, it was everybody. Farming had
nothing to do with it, the lack of medical knowledge, antiseptic
processes, and disease was responsible. And I do know family farmers
in Michigan. They are not a lost breed.

Glad to hear it ... it's just that I call them hobby farmers. Nothing wrong
with that either.

I can't speak for Michigan but throughout the mid atlantic and the west land is
so valuable that the "farmer" could easily make more income by selling it and
investing the cash. The man I "share cropped" the cattle spread was a good
example. He'd made a bundle in politics during ww2 and bought a farm. He
claimed that the appreciation on the land was more than his half of the profits
on the farming operation, and I have no reason to doubt that. We had 6-800
feeder calves and 120 cows on pasture plus 80-120 steers in a feed lot at any
given time. I'd get there by 5am and feed hay, grain and silage then go to my
job. He'd get up and around about 9am and fiddle around in his garden. When I
got back about 6pm he'd come give me advise while I fed again then ground grain
for next morning, getting to bed around 11. I would have been the life of Riley
if I hadn't had to work too but I made more money on my day job. The old
farmer, and the folks I leased farms from for a few dollars/yr (gave them a big
tax break) all refinanced annually and live on the lands' appreciation. We all
lived on farms but were we farmers?? Now, had I owned enough land to live well
off the appreciation (Several $million worth) , and farmed it as well I could
have done OK.

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"katy" wrote
That's such baloney. In West Michigan, .....

Good! But west Michigan (all Michigan?) is economically depressed. Elsewhere,
the land has become so valuable it makes more economic sense to sell out and
live on the $$$ from investing the sale price - unless you have kept refinancing
the mortgage every year to get cash to live on. I think we are argueing
semantics. To me "family farm" means about a quarter section - the amount of
land a family can farm independently without modern "industrial" machinery. But
with modern machinery one man (never mind the "family") can easily farm a setion
or more. In fact, he must to make his investment in those machines pay off.

I'm glad (though dubious) that "family farms" are surviving up there. To the
casual observer, they are here too. There's mom and pop and the kids living on
200 acres. They may have an orchard and garden where they grow their own fruit
and veggies for little more than the "industial" ones in the supermarket. The
daughter has a hobby horse and a few, perhaps one in ten, raise a steer and/or
hog every year. Each spring and fall dad hires a "custom picker" to come with
his industrial machines to plant then harvest a crop. Is that a "family farm"
to you?? If so, no wonder you are so nostalgic about it.

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"Dave" wrote
Vito has a very peculiar definition of family farm. To qualify, his family
farm must not use machinery.

That's not true Dave. I suppose if one man owned 1000+ acres, the amount needed
to justify having modern planters and harvesters, and lived on and farmed it
himself, then I guess you could call it a "family farm".. I just don't know of
any hereabouts. Now the man who had the 160 acres next to my cattle operation
called it a family farm. After all his family lived on it and I "farmed" it (cut
alphalfa) for him so it must be a family farm. Of course the only reason he
could afford to do that was beause he owned a big construction company that
built tract houses. But he was a fermer, not a conrtactor - right?

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"Scotty" wrote in message
...

"Vito" wrongly wrote

That's because, other than the "communistic" Amish, there
are no "family farms"
today.


Liar!


Show me yours.

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Vito wrote:

"Dave" wrote
Vito has a very peculiar definition of family farm. To qualify, his family
farm must not use machinery.

That's not true Dave. I suppose if one man owned 1000+ acres, the amount needed
to justify having modern planters and harvesters, and lived on and farmed it
himself, then I guess you could call it a "family farm".. I just don't know of
any hereabouts. Now the man who had the 160 acres next to my cattle operation
called it a family farm. After all his family lived on it and I "farmed" it (cut
alphalfa) for him so it must be a family farm. Of course the only reason he
could afford to do that was beause he owned a big construction company that
built tract houses. But he was a fermer, not a conrtactor - right?

My wife grew up on a working family farm, where we now live. 160 acres,
mostly dairy. In a lot of ways it was somewhat like what Vito describes,
my wife's mother bore 12 children, 11 survived. It was pretty much
subsistence at the end (1980 or so). They had one crappy old
Massey-Harris tractor, no hydraulics or PTO, just a draw bar. It's still
a farm, for tax purposes, we sell the hay to another farmer, that's
enough for the Gov'mint to give us the tax break. The other farmer
probably farms about 3000-5000 acres, has four tractors, a couple of
rakes, cutters, balers, etc., he runs a thousand or so beef cattle and a
150 or so Holsteins for his dairy side. Even he doesn't own a combine,
he rents one at harvest. Despite all his machinery and hired help he is
not making a great living, plus it's fricken hard work.

The upshot of all this, it'd be a bitch to make a living on 160 acres.

Cheers
Marty

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Marty,

USA minium wage is hardly SLAVE WAGES. We have Millions of illegals
jumping our borders to get those wages. It isn't forced labor by any
means.

http://community.webtv.net/tassail/ThomPage

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"Mys Terry" wrote.

So, for you, farming was a hobby. Got it!

Yes, that's my point. None of us were "family farmers" even thought we had
families and lived on farms.