Rain & Weak Pigs

Over the Middle West last week the sky was leaden. Grey rain clouds rolled over the soggy, black earth; a sharp, tornadic wind whistled through the small towns, bringing death and destruction. Wild ducks, flying north, alighted on small lakes of rain water in the bottomland pastures. In Ohio, the cherry trees refused to bloom. In Illinois, some farmers gave up hope of putting in oats and decided to plant the acreage to corn or soy beans. Even light tractors bogged down in the squishy Missouri soil; one disgusted farmer near Independence sowed a 250-acre area in clover from an airplane. In the Dakotas, the Red River was flooding, and the seeding of spring wheat was only half done.

Even in the great winter-wheat fields of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, where the biggest crop of all time is in prospect, the growth was ten days behind schedule; farmers had been forced to replant early corn and cotton. Many had not been able to plow for row crops.

Last week a TIME correspondent visited 59-year-old Adolph Barke on his 200-acre farm in southern Minnesota near the Iowa line. Barke raises cattle, pigs and sheep, keeps 350 chickens. Besides pasture land, he expects to have 60 acres in oats, 30 in corn, six in flax (which the Government is subsidizing).

Farmer Barke, like all his neighbors in Martin County, was tired. Over the weekend, the rain had held off. All these days and most of the nights, until the ground fog became too heavy for the headlights, the tractors bad crawled over the fields--Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. At 8 p.m. Monday, the rain had begun again. But by then Barke had 50 acres of oats seeded.

Worn out, he went to bed early (but not before shaving, which he does at night so that a thin stubble will protect his face when the sun is bright). Next day, he rose at 5:45 a.m. as usual, took one look at the soaked fields. If the weather didn't dry up soon, the corn would be late going in, and it might be soft, come harvest time. Soft corn made poor feed.

But there was work to be done: pigs to be castrated and vaccinated, worn (but irreplaceable) farm machinery to be repaired. With the help of his two sons, he moved the new pigs into the open lot. He picked up one, looked at it carefully, and shook his head. "Pigs and hogs are the mortgage payers," he said, "but these pigs aren't much good. Look at 'em, no pep. They're just weak."

Midwest farmers have had poor luck with their pigs this spring. Sows that were counted on for litters of eight or nine farrowed only six or seven. And the young pigs were sickly, died like flies during the first week. Of Barke's expected 300 pigs, only 175 were farrowed, only 100 survived. Pork chops would be expensive next winter.

But Farmer Barke was not too worried. The rain would stop some time, and the flax and corn would get in all right. He had bred 25 sows for fall farrow to make up for his spring shortage.

Financially, Farmer Barke and the rest of the nation's farmers were in clover. In Fairmont, where Barke does his shopping, merchants reported retail sales up 49% over last year. The Wall Street Journal surveyed nine major agricultural areas, found that farm income for January and February had topped last year's by 25%. In California, farmers who used to buy cheap cars on credit were plunking down cash for Buicks and Chryslers. In Nebraska, a farmer's wife who used to lay out $5 every six months for a cotton dress walked out of an Omaha department store with two smart woolen suits at $89.95 each.

In another Omaha store, a farmer complained about the price of a living-room suite, recalling that he had paid much less for a similar suite ten or eleven years ago.

"What did you get for corn ten or eleven years ago?" the proprietor asked.

"About 45-c- a bushel."

"And what do you get now?"

"About $2 a bushel," said the farmer, adding after a reflective pause, "I see your point; I'll take the suite."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.