Arch Against The Sky (1953)

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I think we're on the right track mr. Dix thanks a lot glad you got something out of it good night glad you brought mr. dick silver mark made a good speech like it yes it did I'll be out your way one of these days Dan any time well don't expect me to glad-hand you Porter you want my opinion there's only a few specks of sense in what mr. dick said you know I'm always glad to get your ideas Lou but where do you disagree with mr. dicks I don't agree with him hardly any place even if you didn't paint it mighty pretty keep up with these new fandangled ideas he says get yourself bigger crops use a lot of machinery keep your place up to date oh sure it's just dandy the way you tell it mr. dicks but what you don't tell us is where's all these money come from to pay for these things blue the question is money these things all cost money it's nothing but money money money from the time we buy seed until we send the crop to market where's always when he come from from the farmer that's where it comes from right out of his pocket there's a lot of what you have to save a lot of beige gospel I guess I didn't make myself quite clear all of these new developments save money or in some other way they make more money for you oh that's a lot of fancy talk that's all it is I've heard that mr. gage would rather argue than turn up a pot of gold you've been County agent around here for some time mark what do you think well if you can spare a few minutes I'd like to tell all of your story sure I can spare a few minutes okay do any of you know been bailed on Montgomery Township you know I don't know me but don't you go making up anything no more I promised Lou I promised Oh bent a corn farmer but the point of this story can be applied to any kind of farmer any place in this country pens get a pretty nice place down there not the biggest but he's doing all right he's young enough to be interested in new developments and he's old enough to have seen farming done the hard way when he was a kid he was right in the middle of all that drudgery your younger man are kind of lucky you've never worked that way but Lou and I remember it my back still aches want to think about it I mentioned this just to show you that Ben's through a big change in farming just like a lot of us he's worked hard with the old methods and he knows how they used to keep farmers broke both financially and physically then still works hard but like most up-to-date farmers he uses his head too for example he's been using hybrid seed corn for years but still he keeps checking for new developments in hybrid seed and even takes my advice once in a while then has the idea that good crops begin with the right seed that's a pretty hard idea to argue it well that season I'm telling you about things right along about as usual if anything Ben got some breaks on the weather things were moving along just about as good as a man has any right to expect well by the 1st of August Ben was beginning to feel a little sorry for every man who didn't own a farm there hadn't been a serious setback and whatever Ben did he did it with happy thoughts about how that crop was coming along from the lab to September roll around though you can guess what Ben was going through corn looks good doesn't it Ben yeah Marge this ought to be the best crop I've ever had you deserve it well that doesn't always seem to count getting what you deserve I mean that doesn't sound like you've been has something happened not yet but I don't understand well the crop looks good right now awfully good maybe it sounds silly but that's why I started worrying today I'm getting so close to a bumper crop that it's gonna be a tough jolt if something goes wrong at the last minute oh now don't start worrying Ben that doesn't do any good no of course it doesn't but gosh there's a mortgage and you've been needing a new refrigerator for a long time I'd like to get that bicycle for patty I know we've talked about all those things but it sure we've talked about him we talked about him last year in a late fall storm gave us the answer we talked about him the year before the corn was too dry at picking time I left more than ten bushels an acre in the field farmers are sure on a merry-go-round I think yeah if you can see anything Mary about it we go round and round all right sometimes we make some pretty sour music it's almost like somebody's trying to torment us we get bigger yields late maturing hybrid and one way or another we lose most of the game if we guess right step off of that merry-go-round at the right spot okay but if we don't when do you think you'll pick this year been hard to say Marge it's been so wet first chance again I'm gonna find out what some of the others are thinking just talking about you been wondering when you're gonna pick wanted to ask you the same thing I'm going after my next week my corn tested out of 27 percent today that'll give me a good clean job of picking uh-huh then what gonna sell it off right away take what I can get yeah from what I hear that's not gonna be so much I don't taking chances I waited too long last year how about you lon didn't figure now to leave my not a little longer the way the weather's been the last few days my try out quite a bit what are you gonna do Ben I'm going home and flip a coin of course then didn't leave it entirely up to chance he went as far as he could toward making the right guess still seemed a little too wet for safety but then wasn't sure so he took a sample down to the grain elevator to get a moisture test he got the news twenty nine percent moisture content but after he got it he still wasn't sure what to do it'll come a lot cleaner if I pick now not so much silken husks less showing too it'll cut down the corn borer losses handle a lot better before bad weather shuts in then I can sell it off right away but the market will probably be flooded and I won't get near as much as I've been counting on or I can crib it and take a chance on feeding some of it to the Hogs before it gets too mouldy then did the only thing he knew what to do he guessed where the brass ring might be on his merry-go-round and a few days later he started to pick it picked good and clean all right just the way Ben knew it would with a moisture content between 25 and 30 percent and as he saw his crib filling with those fine hybrid ears Dan's good spirits returned maybe he had guessed right this time he was even more certain when he went back over part of his field looking for years to pick him out of mist he didn't find enough to make a good square meal for a pullet I'm not much shelling either yeah Ben was near the top of the world late maturing hybrid corn for big yields a mechanical picker for a good clean job what more could a corn farmer ask for it well early the next spring Ben went down to his crib for another look he'd been doing that every few days since the weather had begun to warm up [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Marg bar Ben then what is it it's the mortgage it's your refrigerator spoil corn it's the same old merry-go-round I got off at the wrong place again a whole Marc Porter so you do agree with me uh-huh up to a point whoo I'm telling you the story because Ben kept on going way beyond the spot where many stop or now don't give me that educated double-talk this Bhim fella he saw the light in me uh-huh and that's the point where I stop agreeing with you because you see Ben didn't give up he kept on trying he made an effort to do something about it you see mr. link I've been hearing it around that you know all about farm buildings and I dropped in to see if you can give me some information be glad to mr. bell if I can what you sit down well I read someplace that the Department of Agriculture is recommending that US farmers dry our ear corn mechanically for storage until we want to use it or sell it and I thought maybe you'd know about it yes I know what you mean there's been a lot of research done on that lately I have some pictures here it's the biggest thing for corn farmers since the mechanical picker here it is a corn drying and storage building yeah I guess that's it all right but tell me mr. Lee I guess my dad had his troubles with corn all right but I don't seem to remember the kind of things have been happening to me always seem to need Dan was enough Sun and enough rain we'd pick when it seemed to be the right time didn't even make a moisture test would shovel a corn into the crib and practically forget about it I don't remember much trouble of any kind that's right mr. bell you remember your dad used open-pollinated seed which matured earlier than hybrid he didn't have to worry about late fall storms got pretty dry right in the field if you picked by hand then filled up maybe at the rate of 50 to 75 bushels a day it had time to dry out some more port was covered up but today with late maturing hybrids and the mechanical picker putting a thousand to two thousand bushels a day into the crib then you need something more than natural drying and that's what this crib does huh yes with the forced air ventilation here's one we've just put up over in Galloway Township here's the way it looks when it's filled up with corn now if you'll come over here to this model mr. bell it'll give you an idea of how it works the air is pushed through by this 42 inch fan driven by a five horsepower motor here you can see how the air is forced out of the tunnel and through the corn and here's a cutaway front view drawing mr. bell it also shows how it works you can see how every single air is hit by the draft of air if you can imagine these lines moving the way the air does then you'll get the idea the fan forces air into the tunnel from outside and then the air travels equally in all directions up through the corn and then out again through the space between the ribs yeah uh-huh and in a side view here's the way it looks into the tunnel up through the corn and out through the end wall openings yeah looks like it might take me off the merry-go-round what's that mr. bell oh just a kind of family joke mr. link oh I see well I don't need to tell you what this drying means mr. bell you could pick your corn before it gets dry because that's when it bakes best you can store it safely until you can get the best price cut down your labor cut down your worry yeah it sounds good but what happens when you're not using this building for corn that tunnel if it could be moved up the building could be used for a lot of things couldn't it sure it could and here's one example of it's being used to store Chinnery uh-huh let me show you how it's done just as you said the tunnel comes out in sections when you don't need it can be done in less than an hour and then you've got another farm building for just about any you can think of fact is thread many farmers in all parts of the country you're using Quonset buildings for a lot of different things you'll find them on the most up-to-date places no matter where you go because this is a building that's been engineered to do a modern job for the farmer I'll take care for instance this will give you an idea of its versatility with this 40 by 140 foot building a grassland farmer gets real fire protection for hay and for the surrounding buildings and an entirely different use the 40 by 100 foot building to house 40 calves in New York State and here's the way a Kansas farmer uses one the same size for wheat storage this 32 foot building has bins added for the year-round storage of shelled corn wheat soybeans grain sorghum Zoar other small grains this Ohio farmer is what you need mr. bell he dries in stores his corn in the back and an addition has room in front for soybeans you can see how easily adaptable it is this is a CCC grain depot in South Dakota that shows the trend toward using the ground to support the way to store grain to eliminate the work of turning shelled corn and small grain here's a new cooling tunnel that gets the same result this 24 foot wide building is in North Carolina but it's popular every place for a low cost Machinery storage and general shed purposes and it's also ideal for a livestock shelter and here's still a different use a loafing barn that's comfortable for the cows and any weather for dairying it's used in conjunction with the milk parlor with this kind of setup mr. bell you can cut the milking short time to half what it takes for machine milking and an ordinary stanchion barn but here's a stanchion barn in Minnesota designed for real labor-saving plus the same fire protection so you can see mr. Bella why I say these buildings have been planned and engineered to do a job for any kind of farmer for you it's a job of corn drying and storage and for any other kind of storage you may need yeah uh-huh I see alright but it must be pretty expensive you think so with all its advantages actually mr. bell this building not only pays for itself it gives you a profit year after year how do you mean profit okay here's what I mean right here in these letters from farmers look at this one case where a building paid for itself the first year the owner tells us in detail how the building works for him and they feel quite sure that this building will meet your requirements I'd also like you to take these folders along show them to mrs. Bell - well thanks mr. Lang I'll think it over alright mr. Bell glad you dropped in so long bye so Ben thought it over and made his decision and his corn drying building began to take shape Ben watched it grow to him it was like a gigantic suit of armor that would protect him in the age-old battle against nature as he looked at the curves of Steel he felt complete confidence for the first time in his adult life he knew that now he had the means to control the time of harvest and the time of marketing but from now on he was going to be the boss that fall when his corn had a moisture content between 25 and 30 percent Ben began to think and it was coming in clean with good husking very little showing just the way it did the year before everything was going swell a good yield no mechanical troubles and Ben worked with growing confidence as that corn moved up the elevator and dropped from sight into the building soon Ben thought I'll send a gale of the tunnel and the air will go all through the building and dry the corn and I can keep it as long as I want to I won't sell it till I feel like it and that'll be when the markets right there wasn't any ceremony when the time came for the dryer to go to work Ben just threw the switch the end rush of air was going to make this crop safe and the sight of it made Ben feel good but Bennet felt good before some things had gone wrong he didn't know what might go wrong this time but he wasn't going to build up Marge's hopes again until he was sure well they talked they didn't talk about corn or bicycles or refrigerators or mortgages Marge understood what was going on she played right along because she'd seen Ben sometimes a couple times a day up there looking at his corn to see how it was drying she knew what was going on in his mind but finally she couldn't stand the suspense any longer so she followed Ben out one day Hey what's going on up there take a look what do you think man I don't this time I know we've got a date of course you know what happened after that the mortgage got a slug in the jaw Marge got a refrigerator and Patty got a bicycle but even more important then got off the merry-go-round large yields through hybrid seed and the advantages of fast low-cost mechanical picking made a lot more an hour with controlled drying controlled drying blue that's what we needed and that's what Ben got even in a year with normal weather he'll make more money on his corn than his neighbors who haven't dried theirs plus a farm building he can use for just about anything he wants that's what he got and at the end of my story as far as Ben's concerned as far as everybody here is concerned no matter what your type of farming is you can get off your old merry-go-round by keeping up-to-date on modern farming methods oh it ain't no fun organ with a man that always wins mark Porter you know that I know that loop only this time there wasn't any argument [Applause]