Appalachian Farm

Cold and your cattle

2011-12-17T12:43:00.000-08:00

It’s pretty remarkable that warm-blooded animals can survive the extreme cold they sometimes must. The practical cattleman will not learn anything from this article to lighten the burden Old Man Winter puts on man and beast. It is intended to give an appreciation of some of the factors that affect the animal (and man) in the cold.

The normal core temperature for cattle is somewhat higher than for humans, 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit vs. 98.6 F. The cow is stressed if it goes below 100 F. Apparently that is beneficial to the function of the rumen, the stomach that ferments the cows food. This fermentation process involves growth of microorganisms that can turn plants the cattle eat into material which can be digested as it passes through the rest of the animals digestive tract. These microorganisms convert cellulose to simple sugars and some plant proteins into amino acids the cow can absorb and use which without fermentation would pass through without contributing to the cow’s nutrition.

A continuing supply of feed is very important for the animal because the fermentation supplies a lot of heat, which helps keep the animal warm in winter. Of course it also contributes heat the cow must loose in warm weather, too. The cow has a hard time getting rid of heat in summer, because, unlike humans and horses, but like many other animals, it does not sweat. Heat is lost by the bovine through evaporation of water in the lungs and breathing passages. A cow is most comfortable at 40 F. That’s why they are apt to be frisky when it is a little chilly.

One thing that helps conserve heat in dry cold weather is the hair. It helps to constrain the movement of warm air around the cow. The cow can (involuntarily) constrict the capillaries in her skin and prevent warm blood from flowing to the surface better than humans. So the surface temperature will be much lower than internal temperature when under cold stress.

Temperature is one factors in cold stress of healthy, well fed cattle. There are two others, wind chill and wet. Wind chill is familiar, we humans experience it when we walk around a corner from a still area to one where a wind is blowing. We generally seek to avoid it, and since we are relatively free to move where we want, don’t experience it much unless forced to work outside in windy cold conditions, like farmers and sailors must.

We are conscious of the effect of wet, too, but perhaps a little basic science will help understand why it is so potent. Water has a very high heat capacity, that is it takes a lot of heat to warm it, about ten times as much as an equivalent weight of iron. Strange, but true. If a warm object is in a dashing rain the water that runs off the animal (or object) is warmed, and that heat must be supplied from within the animal if the animal’s core temperature is to stay up where it belongs.

A second, even more substantial factor is that if the object is wet, water will evaporate from its surface, not just at the end of the rain, but constantly. Evaporation requires energy to separate the molecules of liquid water to allow it to become a gas. A huge amount of energy is required to evaporate water, about five and a third times the amount of heat required to warm the water from freezing temperature to boiling temperature (32 F to 212 F). This goes on all the time the animal is wet, since the skin cannot be allowed go below freezing temperature. The animal can’t avoid it. If the rain turns to snow, the evaporation goes on until the animal is dry. Dry snow is not as hard on the animal as rain, because it does not melt much, held off the animal’s skin by its hair.

Remember the heat you loose by sweating? And the effect of coming out of a shower in a cold room? It’s the same principle. The cooling is due to evaporation of water from your skin. The animal living outside must, in effect, sweat when it rains in addition to the heat that is carried away by water washing over it. And it has a lot of water retained in the hair which must evaporate before its skin is dry. A wet bovine in a heavy rain or somewhat below freezing temperature is in a pretty grim situation.

But what about a calf born into the snow? All the above apply. It needs to get a drink of colostrum as soon as possible to get digestion started as soon as possible. Colostrum is very energy rich. The calf has another adaptation, too. They have a brown fat specialized to produce heat (as do other animals, including humans). It has extra mitochondria, and a special chemistry that allows heat to be generated. It is not an unlimited supply of energy, but something the calf can call on when needed.

The best thing for your animals in the cold is to be able to get out of the wind. A shelter from the rain would also help. This is just common sense to the cowman, but maybe this discussion will help understand more about it.

Paid Hunting

2011-12-17T09:20:00.000-08:00

Paid hunting is a resource we have in the East, but it is much less likely to be utilized than in the West. For one thing, is a bit more complicated here. Our farms are smaller and the population density is higher. Control is more likely to be a problem, since you have so many neighbors.

It can pay well, however. Fellows that buy a large four-wheel drive truck, a four wheeler, fancy clothes and an expensive rifle can be tapped for a little more for a good hunting experience. Paid hunting is not an entirely a profit making proposition, however. You have to have put something into it, too.

First, how to size up your prospects. The larger your tract, the better. The more remote the better. The better terms you are on with your neighbors, the better paid hunting will work. If you have a rocked road to the interior (coal striping road or well access road), that is good. If you have people coming to you asking to hunt, that is good. If you keep livestock, you need to keep them off the best hunting grounds. It is possible to hunt in the midst of cattle, but the hunters are inhibited by them, and you run a risk of getting one shot.

On the other hand, if you have a trailer court next door, or have a really determined neighbor who has no other place to hunt, you will have to become a policeman for trespassers, whether you have any talent for the job or not. Tracts near a busy highway or noisy industrial installation are not considered a good place to hunt. Think about your situation. Maybe you want to keep it for yourself or not bother.

How much should you charge? This varies widely, but remember the quality of the experience you provide for your hunters counts. Also the rules must be simple and clear. Some will pay substantial amounts for a good hunting experience

What is a good experience? Basically it means the hunter has a good chance of getting his game and there aren't any interferences. How do you manage that? You can encourage the game on your place. Round bales placed to hide behind will help the hunting. Allow your hunters to put up stands, feed the animals beforehand and put out mineral blocks. They might want to put up cameras, and they surely won't want to carry deer any great distance. Let them use four wheelers. You may have to pull hunters out if they get stuck. If they come from some distance, they might want to store the game in one of your buildings overnight if it is cool enough. They might want to camp, too, but that will command more money for you.

The most important thing though, is to be a good communicator. Talk to them when you see them. If they do something that you consider not fair, be kind to them by talking about it gently. Don't boss or talk down to them.

I have been impressed over the years how looking at the same scene, my hunters and I will see different things. They will see trails, openings in the woods, "sign" and foot prints, while I see the quality of timber, the height of the grass, cow manure, weeds that need to be sprayed, and so on. Unless you are an avid hunter yourself, you don't live in the same world with them.

What they pay helps reduce your bills. At the present time about one-seventh of my farm income is from hunting.

You will be unhappy with the tracks hunters leave when it rains. But avoiding most things that those of us complain about with paid hunters depends on maintaining good relations, which makes them want to close gates, not go through fences, not litter, and such like.

You need insurance. The duty you owe (1) trespassers, (2) permittees (those you allow to come on your property but make no money from) and (3) licencees ( those you make money from) are different. In West Virginia you owe tresspassers and permittees (for hunting only) just one thing. You can not rig up something to hurt them. Licencees are owed considerably more, including pointing out where there are hazards on the farm. The long and the short of it is that you need insurance. Not having it is a good way to lose the farm. But it is not expensive.

The insurance agent should be able to provide you with the mechanics of how to set up your procedure to satisfy his/her company. What follows is how I do it.

There are six different papers. These set up a hunting club with hunters as members along with the landowner, with no formal officers.

The first is an "application to hunt" form. It has the rules on the top of the page and the lower part is the application which each hunter must cut off and submit. This includes name, address, phone number, age (to verify no children) and a detailed description of each vehicle the hunter might drive. I allow one or two boys or girls over twelve but less than eighteen, and each must hunt with a mature hunter, someone old enough to be the father.

The second paper, the bylaws, is effectively a contract and talks specifically about a hunting club. It includes a statement of purpose and how many hunter members will be allowed. It lists duties of the farmer member (landowner). In my case, the most important of these are to transfer hunting rights, to discourage trespassing, to keep cattle confined. It includes a statement the farmer member will not support those who trespass on adjacent land knowingly or accidentally.

The duties of all members are to keep gates closed, to avoid littering and to travel on roads as much as possible.

The duties of hunter members are to obey all applicable laws, report dead animals, both domestic and unsalvageable game, to report accidents or injuries to civil authority and to the farmer member, and a few economic items such as put tree stands in least valuable trees and preserve farm resources. This paper stays the same from year to year.

The third paper is an annual list of details and members. It describes the area to be hunted, the payment, and the term, which runs from the beginning of the buck season of one year to the beginning of buck season the next. You could sell the right to each type of game separately, but that is not advantageous in my situation. The signatures of the hunters are on the left side below these items and the signature of the farmer member is on the right.

The fourth is a permission slip, which is to be carried in the hunter's billfold. This satisfies the game warden if he comes on the farm. It has the hunter's name and the name of the landowner - me. It says something to the effect "so-an-so has permission to hunt on my land in Lewis County," followed by my signature.

The fifth and sixth are optional, but I think a good idea. The fifth is a list of all hunters by name with address and phone number. Below this is a list of all vehicles, by color, that might be used hunting, which comes from the "application to hunt," followed by the owner hunter's name, address and phone number. Copies are given to natural leaders in the group and one is retained for the farm office.

The sixth is a map of the farm with boundaries, streams and some contour lines. It is a blown up tracing of a topo map with the farm boundaries drawn in. In actual usage this has pretty much fallen by the wayside, since much the same hunters come year after year. This kind of map might be useful with a new group or one where the hunters vary a lot from year to year.

It is important to impress on hunters that, according to the laws of West Virginia, they may pursue a deer on another person's property if it is wounded, but in no other circumstances should they walk on, or shoot an animal on, adjoining property. It is important to you to get along with your neighbors. And a stray bullet might find it's way into the hunter trespassing on the adjacent land.

All these can be set up to be used year after year and xeroxed, except the fifth.

This author is not a lawyer, and this article is not to be taken as legal advice. It is a series of observations and explanation of how it worked out for me. Many Appalachian farms should be able to ad a few thousand dollars a year income in return for several hours researching and setting up the program and a few hours work administering it annually.

Priorities for spraying

2011-12-17T09:10:00.000-08:00

As I have detailed previously in this blog, spraying with a four-wheel all terrain vehicle with a trailer provides a convenient way to spray weeds and brush on hilly land. the operator can sit astride the four-wheeler and drive to the spot where spray is needed, do the job and them move on without the labor of crawling off and pulling hose the way you do with a tractor mounted sprayer. The trailer with spray tank allows the operator to move 40 gallons or more and the center of gravity is low allowing travel over rough, steep ground. Application of spray is slower, but more precise than a tractor mounted sprayer.

What sort of priorities should one have? Keeping fence lines clear should be first. You need to keep livestock at home. Barbed wire fence needs work regularly, but keeping the worst brush and weeds out of electric fence in imperative. Surely, fences have first priority, all the way around fields keeping livestock. Spraying can also serve to examine and repair fence. It is a good idea to keep fence tools and some materials, such as insulators in the tool box. On my farm I have a trail around the fence even through the woods to allow rapid, mobile access. It took some effort to get it there, but it was worth it, reducing time and effort year after year.

If you are just starting to spray, cover the ground that has the least, most widely spread brush to spray first, particularly if it is near the farmstead where your house and equipment is kept, then push away from the base. Around the tree line of woods will always take a lot of attention, because birds will drop seeds from the limbs above, and the shade discourages grass and allows brushy plants. Where the plants to be sprayed are continuous do last. It takes the most spray and the least pasture is freed up.

A 40 gallon spray tank will require two hours, plus or minus half an hour, to place. The time required to come to the farmstead and get a new load is about 20 minutes to half an hour.

Once again, avoid inhaling the stuff. Your lungs are very delicate, only two cell layers between the blood and the air pockets called alveoli. They also have a system to control surface tension, and spray has surfactants to help it stick to the leaves and stems of the plants you spray. If you can feel it on you face or can see it falling toward yourself, hold your breath and move on.

Pasture and some special considerations on spraying

2010-11-25T07:13:00.000-08:00

Pasture is what makes you money in the cattle business. Some people don't spend any money on pasture and can't keep many cattle on their ground. They may even find they have to keep moving to new ground or go out of business. You need to provide as many days of pasture to your stock as possible. It's a lot cheaper than feeding hay.

At present there are three techniques that are feasible for weed control: spraying, clipping pasture that isn't too grown up, and and basal spray. You'd as well plant more brush as to brush hog. The objective is to keep the grass and legumes from being displaced by brushy weeds and forest, and to maintain the grass in the vegetative state as much as possible, rather than in the reproductive (going to seed) stage. Seeds and seed stems are low in digestible nutrients and have poor palatability. Proper rotation is the most important way to keep grass vegetative.

Spray You have to use herbicide to really kill brushy weeds. Spray works best if the brush is shoulder high or less, and use it when the brush is growing , not a dry time. I once used Crossbow, and they say you can use it at any time the snow is not on, but I have always used it as a foliar (leaf) spray. For two years now I have used Remedy Ultra and Forefront, which contain much the same ingredients plus a small amount of a similar herbicide. Remedy contains nearly twice as much triclopyr as Crossbow, and Forefront has a large amount of 2,4-D and a smaller amount of a similar compound. The combination was ecomended by my local Southern States dealer. I found using 80% of the recommended minimum of Remedy and 25% of the minimum of Forefront is very effective for susceptible weeds all season, no increase needed as the season advances. I have yet to find anything that will control raspberries, redbud and a very few other species, but these are a minor problem due to slow growth and limited propagation. They can be controlled manually. I use spot application, so application rates are far below the amount allowed per acre.

The instructions say to wet leaves and stems. Folks, you can't do more, because the excess runs off. Be through, but avoid a tendency to over do it!

It is hard not to get yourself wet with spray, and it is often hard to tell whether you are wet with spray or sweat, because putting it on is work. I haven't had an adverse effect from Crossbow, and I have been used it and it's predecessor for forty years, except twice I have had an effect from inhaling it. The effect was to make me feel a little weak for two or three weeks. Occasionally it would cause a runny nose or phlegm. I have never felt ill effect from the combination I use now.

I did some occupational health work for a few years, and worked in biological warfare two and a half years in the 50's, and from these learned a little about the body's defenses that apply here. The lungs consist or many small sacs the size of a grape, each enclosing an airspace which is connected to the trachea, the pipes air passes through to get to the lungs. These sacs are two cells thick, with air on one side and blood on the other, to facilitate movement of oxygen to the blood and and carbon dioxide in the other direction. They are very tender. "Smoke inhalation" in a fire is usually inhalation of hot air, which sears these cells. Sear enoug of them and you can not exchange oxygen. Goodby! Likewise if droplets of spray solution get down to them, they would allow ready absorption.

The passages which lead to these sacs are lined with fine hairs, and a think fluid catches foreign materials, solid particles and liquid drops, and they are slowly moved back up toward the entrance by the hairs. Your phlegm is this fluid. It comes up on its own, and comes up when you "hork it up." It also includes drainage from your sinuses. If you have worked in dusty conditions you may have noticed the thick part of what you spit up has dust caught in it. Same thing occurs with inhaled droplets. If you swallow phlegm with germs in it (when you have a cold) the acid of the stomach kills most all of them. If you have dust in your phlegm, it will pass through your digestive system with little effect. I really don' know abut he effect of the materials in spray, but I would think it is a good idea to spit the phlegm out - I always do.

In the biological warfare of the 50's (fifty years ago) they made a great deal of getting very fine droplets in the dispersing spray, because very small ones would be carried into the lungs, and not deposited in the airways, as larger drops would, which are cleared out. I don' think much of the volume of herbicide would be converted to very fine droplets in the low pressure sprays in ag use. In other words, most of it would come back up in phlegm.

Another consideration is that sprays are a complex mixture. The "active ingredient" is a plant hormone. Being a hormone does not mean it has an effect in human biochemistry, because human (and other animal) biochemistry is so different from plants. In effect, the hormone is a plant growth regulator.

In addition to the active ingredient (there are actually two of them working in tandem in in all three herbicides mentioned) there are other chemicals. The active ingredients are not water soluble, which necessitates an emulsifier, because you dilute with water, which is cheap. There is also a detergent to help the spray stick to leaves and get into holes and cracks. I suspect the problem I have had from inhalation was from the detergent, because there is a surfactant that controls the surface tension of the liquid in you lungs and the rest of the breathing apparatus, and I think that was "messed up." Best not to breathe the stuff!

At one time I used a full-face gas mask (I'd researched the appropriate canister for the spray), but it was hot and clumsy, so I quit using it. The kind of paper or fiber mask a painter uses may help, at least with the larger droplets, but this is questionable.

One problem with our West Virginia fields is that they are so irregular, and have many edges. At one time the woody growth was cut out of all the little valleys , and off all the places now too steep to get to with a tractor, including knobs. You could see all over the field. Doubtless these places were not smooth, they would have had tracks cut into the steep slopes so animals could walk around them. We could return to such practices with proper husbandry, if the (market) conditions encouraged it. This would mean elimination of cover for deer and coyotes, too, which would be an advantage.

Originally I used a tractor with a 150 gallon sprayer and got over all the farm every second or third year. Now we use a four-wheeler with a forty gallon tank on a low trailer behind. Using a tank mounted on the four-wheeler itself is a tip-over hazard when the liquid splashes from side to side. With our arrangement (see article below) you can get all over the farm, and can get it every year. Our arrangement eliminates getting on and off the tractor frequently, you can remain seated. It is far less labor, less exposure to the operator, and requires less material.

Basal spraying The use of basal spraying has been known for some time, but hasn't been widely used in this area. The solution is made up in diesel fuel or kerosine and is more concentrated than foliar spray. A hand sprayer is usually used. Spray is applied to the bottom fifteen to eighteen of the plant, all the way around. It is better than foliar spray for woody plants more than shoulder high (one application will frequently kill plants up to a foot or more in diameter for many species), and it can be done at any time of year, even if it will soon rain. However the February and March season suggests itself, when the ground is dry enough, and leaves are off. Inhalation of spray should be less of a problem, since the operator is always spraying downward.

Clipping pasture The advantage of using a mowing machine is that it is relatively fast. It gets the weeds that are not killed by spray, too. When you cut with a brush hog you cut six feet wide the first time around. After this is this considerably less because the brush hog is free to swing from side to side and you can't directly see where the edge between the cut and uncut grass is located. You do well to get a five foot width of cut after with a six foot cutter. With a mower you have the full width of the machine with perhaps four inches off for ovrlap. The problem is that the mower is much more easily broken. This means you have to pick up rocks, especially, and also fallen branches, etc. Trees must be cleaned up regularly, in any case, becausethey harbor new growth of woody weeds and make new edges to the pasture.

Never hit the same rock twice I usually have he loader bucket on when I do a piece or the first three times, so all I have to do is to stop and throw the rocks in. After that you don't need the bucket all the time, but can leave it in the field, and attach it when needed.

If brush gets larger than shoulder high, by neglect, no other word applies, you may want to brush hog it, then spray the shoots the next year (or likely for two or three years). The must be a delay of a year or two after the brush dies before you use the mower again because of the stumps. I recommend brush hog only on very steep ground, rough ground (where there are little washes, old cattle tracks, hidden stumps, etc), and there only because a brush hog is harder to break.

One disadvantage of the brush hog is the clutch. they all have a clutch to prevent injury to the tractor drive shaft (an expensie repair). But it requires some care to get it adjusted right. It should turn when something solid is hit, but should not be so loose it will get hot by slipping. It would be best to have it slip a little in ordinary use, to keep the clutch plates free of rust, but it will "polish" if they slip too much. The clutch must not get wet, because it will rust, and freeze up. Then it must be loosened so it will turn and you have to go through an extensive process of tightening until it is the right tension.

You can cut anything you can ride down with the tractor, by going slow and backing up a few times. However, many tractors have hydraulic hoses and other bendable parts under them. This riding down characteristic is how the brush hog gets its name. Hogs are sometimes put in standing corn, and they straddle the stalks and ride them down to the ground where they can get the ears. No tractor tha I know of that is now being manufactured has a truly hardened underside. Older ones are better in this respect.

You may be able to find a special kind of brush hog that is designed for larger trees, which allow you to cut them off by back up into them. They have a large heavy wheel underneath, which serves as a flywheel, four short heavy blades and a protective device on the back which retracts through compression springs to allow the blades to come in contact with the tree. With this you can cut trees six inches or more in diameter. It is about 20% to 50% more expensive than the regular heavy brush hog.

Pasture rotation The best way to maintain te grass in a vegetative state is to use adequate lime and divide the pasture in several fields and rotate pasture. This s a relatively new technique, and you should consult experts. The basic idea is to force the cattle to cleanup grass in one "paddock" and then move on to the another. When to move depends on how many paddocks you have and the condition of the grass. You don't want to graze the grass too short, because this will delay recovery, but at the same time you want them to eat it all, including cleaning out the fence rows.

Many experts say the more paddocks the better. Some try to move to a new one every day. The problem with this is you have to have water for each paddock, which increases the expense considerably. Of course the additional fence requires additional maintenance. Another problem is the variable rate of growth of grass. It begins in April, reaches a maximum in May and June, declnes cosiderably in the heat and dryness of the late summer and then has a second growth spurt in September and October when the rains return. And some years are much more productive, basically due to the difference between a wet year and a dry one. Some years in West Virginia you can pasture three times as many cattle on a given acreage as in the driest years.

You should think about at least eight or ten paddocks. Some of these would be cut for hay in the May-June rotation, and used for pasture in the dryer season. The plan should provide pasture into December or later, and might provide some planted hot season supplement, such as Sudan Grass in paddocks for August and early September. Paddocks could be subdivided by temporary (electrified string) fence.

Rotation is said to considerably increase the stocking rate, and works well with highly developed (limed and fertilized) pasture. It should considerably reduce the amount of spraying and clipping needed. It does require much more careful attention to detail, however.

The future As you know, the world supply of oil will run out by degrees. By 2025 the pinch will be sharp. This means great uncertainty in many respects. The advent of the petroleum driven tractor revolutionized farming. You could keep four or five cows where you kept a team of horses. Horses need daily attention, long training periods, are capricious, get sick, must be acquired by birth and raising, all of which reduce efficiency. It is hard to think they might come back as a source of farm power after the age of petroleum, but they might. Level land could be used to utilize other, heavier sources of power than the internal combustion engine.

I think what will happen in pasture is more efficient grazing systems, particularly with the utilization of more than one species. Sheep or goats to clean up after cows, for example. There will always be some weeds that are not eaten by cows and these will need to be taken care of by alternate methods. Sheep or goats require more secure fencing and more protection against predators. Alternatively it may be the old "grubbing hoe" or some similar tool will supply the need for weed removal again, at great cost in labor. The land owning class and the farm labor class may again become distinct.

I expect labor to be used in place of petroleum, to some extent. The lonely business I have experienced may change back toward the gang labor farming of the past. Local markets will become more important, communication by wire more important. This is if the free market prevails. If the government takes over it is hard to predict what will happen, other than things will go to hades for sure. in any case the person who thinks about what is happening and plans ahead will have a significant advantage.

The main advantage the Western cattlemen have, aside for being closer to the packing plants, which are located in the West because the feed lots are there, is that they do not have as many problems maintaining pastures. The biggest problem they face in the long run is that they will have severe water problems in a few years. The Midwest, the South and the more southerly part of the Far West are expected to have the most severe loss of precipitation. The giant Ogallala Aquifer is being "mined" in the sense that more water is being taken out than is being replaced by nature. About 27% of the irrigated land in the United States overlies this aquifer system, which supplies about 30% of the nation's ground water used for irrigation. Many feeding operatons are in this area, due to the corn and soybeans grown there.

Summary It is my belief that a judicial mixture of spraying and clipping when needed is the best pasture maintenance at the present. Rotational grazing has much to recommend it, but it is more management intensive.

The farm as a buffer in hard times

2010-08-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

(Started March 2004)

I was born in “The Great Depression” of the thirties, and heard a lot about it growing up. It never did end for the West Virginia farm economy, at least until after my children grew up. It continued right through the forties and fifties for West Virginia farmers. For laborers willing to move out of state, to Akron (“The largest West Virginia town outside of West Virginia,” they said) or Baltimore, it ended with the boom of WWII.

However, the worst of it wasn’t too bad for our family, because they had something to sell – milk and eggs. People didn’t always pay their bills – Dad often let men work off their bills in farm work. He often said, “I have a half interest in half the kids in West Milford (where he delivered his milk) because I kept them alive at times.” There was some exaggeration in this, but certainly he supplied the richest and most dependable part of their diet. The reason the family got along well was because Dad’s sister, Aunt Lotta, who lived next door, had a dependable job (teacher) and Dad had something to sell that everyone wanted, and his price was right.

When I first came to Jesse Run farm one of the neighbors who had worked for Carroll Bond told me about being paid for work in potatoes and meat. This was not unusual at the time.

At the present time I see our farm, like most around, as being rather specialized, producing feeder calves and occasionally, timber. It has the capacity to do much else. The easiest change would be growing out cattle on grass. The farm could produce other food, gardens and potatoes for home use or sale (it once did), and space to drill water wells. A shop could produce furniture, do light repairs and maintenance on autos and farm machinery. Sheep have some possibility, but require a lot of labor, and must be protected from predators. And they need a building in winter.

Any of these things are a technology, and one would have to acquire the knowledge to conduct these enterprises, but that is only work. And you’d need a little capitol. A high speed connection to the Jane Lew telephone exchange (three miles) would allow computer work here.

If you learn to like it, the farm provides work that is as much fun as most recreation. Keeping the farm going is a balancing act, though.

As this is written in 2004, the United States is going in debt to foreigners at a rate of $500 billion per year. That is the value of imports minus exports. The only way this amount can be paid is by debt (which carries interest) and by selling American assets. Our debt grew by 6.3 times the growth of the economy in the fourth quarter of 2002, $2.3 trillion vs. $363 billion. Overseas investment payments are were $333 billion in 2002. The value of the dollar with respect to the euro is falling rapidly.

40% of the graduates of U. S. institutions of higher learning in science and technology are foreigners. Blue collar jobs have been exported to other parts of the world, and now white collar jobs, such as computer programming and low level management are going.

The population is aging, and a Social Security bust is bound to happen, they say.

The stock market is over inflated. The returns (dividends) do not justify the cost of stock, prices are held up by the expectation of gains in the value of stocks, capital appreciation. In other words, by speculation.

The average U. S. family carries an immense debt load. Interest is going down, which encourages more borrowing. Manufacturing is seriously sick, and can not compete with foreign industries. The economy is being carried by expanding consumer debt and government spending. Neither of these increase national wealth, but consume it. Our military is a massive financial drag for the nation, but affords huge profits for a few.

Much U. S. currency is used in exchange between foreign countries. (Petroleum, for example, is usually bought with dollars.) If the euro or some other currency increasingly becomes the medium of exchange, there will be a vast excess of dollars, far more than would be needed for U. S. commerce, leading to very serious inflation.

In short, it seems likely that bad times will return. How is the farm related to that?

In a depression stocks fall in value, some of them becoming valueless. The value of land falls, also, because much of the value of land is speculation on future worth, just like ownership of stock in corporations, this portion of the value is related to the general economic situation. Land does retain some of its value in a depression because there are always people in a depression who have money. Land is space, which is in demand, and it retains its productive value through a range of opportunities for the creative mind. And it is the home, the most important investment for a family, any investment councilor will tell you.

If there is a cloud on the horizon, the farm operation needs to be kept nearly debt-free, because after a fall occurs, the debts don’t disappear. The creditor will also be in trouble and will be desperate for his money. You must pay or loose it. If you loose livestock or machinery, you still have your home, but if you loose the farm, you loose it all.

Since the exact nature of the coming problem is not certain – it will not be a 1930’s type depression – I can not give specific advice, but must suggest you use your mind well. Get information, think ahead for the consequences of your action, get along well with your neighbors. In any case, you should be better off if you live on a farm managed for the times.

It is now April 2009, and we are not at the bottom, in spite of what they tell us.

The mortgage bust hit last fall. Experts tell us that about as many mortgages will fail in the near future as have failed in the past year. General motors plans to take a nine weeks vacation this summer, rather than the customary two weeks, and the other car companies are also about broke. Layoffs continue at a fast pace. Various kinds of corruption have made the headlines.

Even the military has been hit to some extent. The F-22 fighter appears to be discontinued, but the fight is hard in Congress. It is estimated to cost, including development cost, about $350M per plane. The F-35, a later, more versatile, high tech plane is being continued.

The average 401k retirement plan has lost 27% in the past year, according to CBS Nightly News. Many families are consolidating as a revetment against lost income. The army is tightening it’s enlistment standards, because hard times has made many young people choose that option. Bank loans are hard to get, credit card interest rates are rising and limits are coming down, many companies are advertising twice as hard and food is getting expensive in two ways – it is getting more costly to buy an article and the packages are getting smaller.

On the farm, timber has gone down to almost nothing, cattle prices are dropping and people are talking about raising a garden. That is a great idea for a farm in hard times. It is a lot of work, but it helps replace money for one of the largest expenses a family has. Another good project is potatoes. The yield is good, they can be prepared in many ways, and they have vitamin C, B vitamins, potassium and a number of minerals. The skins are a good source of fiber (needed by us old folks). They produce more food value for less work than about any other source and the technology is simple.

A technology that is relatively complex is keeping a cow or two. She must have food for the winter, but can survive, reproduce and give milk on hay and minerals. You will want a shed for hay storage and milking (no fun in the rain in winter) and fenced grass land, some of which must provide winter feed. You also need appropriate vessels for milking and storage, and refrigeration. This gets you milk, butter, cottage cheese. When she gets a calf (she must be bred once a year), that provides beef from the same diet. A dual-use cow must be carefully chosen. The bull can be any beef breed, or she may be artificially bred.

The cow’s manure is good fertilizer for many plants, and excess milk can be fed to a pig, along with household food waste, including parings, scraps and slightly outdated food. A cow or two and a few pigs should meet the meat needs of any family. There is a lot to learn if you have not grown up with the technology, though.

An orchard is a good bet too, lots of work and lots of new technology to get started, but once underway produces a lot of food with relatively little work. An orchard takes 4 or 5 years to get into production, however. Grapes, berries and rhubarb are good choices for side projects. All of these must be kept from the deer, which like them as well as you do.

Old timey favorites from the garden easily kept for the winter include kraut, buried potatoes, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, roots of various sorts, dried corn and beans of some types, and canned goods, such as green beans, tomato juice, beets, pickles.

Think about trading items, rather than buying them. You may be able to trade for skills, too, such as mechanic work, carpentry beyond what you can do yourself, and labor in some of these enterprises.

Use you head rather than your feet, as Br’er Rabbit said!

August , 2010. There has been some talk of “improvement” of the situation a month or so ago, but it is mostly “wishful thinking.” The U. S. economy needs 200, 000 new jobs a month to keep up with the population growth, they say, but new jobs amounted to less than one-sixth of that last month, and that was about the way it is running now. It is slowly dawning that there is no use to flagellate the consuming consuming public for not spending (70% of the economy). They are already deeply in debt and afraid of the future.

The problem is that the good jobs were sent overseas. The new ones that have been and are being created are low-paying. The beneficiaries have been, to a small extent, investors, and to a very large extent top managers. Unless we can put workers to work in good-paying jobs, they won’t have money to dispose of, to bring us out of the economic troubles. The only people who will have money to spend are the ultra-rich and they will not create jobs but will speculate with their gains.

In some places today the rate of mortgage failure is twice what it was earlier. Money is easier to borrow for agriculture than many other kinds of business, because the farm loan is invariably backed up, directly or indirectly, by the farm land itself. Beware! There are a lot of investors out there who would rather have your farm to see them through hard times than their money.

Living in dangerous times

2010-03-25T05:09:00.000-07:00

In dangerous times, try to be in a position where a reduction in income will do a minimum of serious damage -
Live conservatively, put any savings into an appropriate investment. The worst of all is stocks - they have a nasty way of disappearing completely. Some kinds of paper are better than others. But nobody in our family has so much money they have to invest in someone else's' business. Bank deposits are safe to the extent of insurance provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the government agency (unless the government goes broke). The problem with money savings is that in hard times it is almost certain to decline in value.

Some good investments are developing salable skills, developing your own business (selling something people will always need such as food, firewood, skills such as mechanics, house repair, etc .); buying items for resale in the near future (if you have the skills), but don't get over extended. Look for ways to make money on the side consistent with your life style.

The most important, and first investment anyone should make, is in a modest home. Rent is a bottomless pit you throw money into. Ideally, the payments should be well within your ability to pay. Pay off as quickly as possible. That way you are at risk for less time, and you don't loose as much money to interest. Fixing up an older house is a great idea, if you have the ability. If your occupation requires you to move, get something that can be resold easily.

Cars are a great sink for money. Own as few as will meet your family needs. Own one status car if you have to, but keep the others small and cheap. This saves gasoline, insurance, tires, etc. You are doing well by riding a bicycle if the distance to travel is short. This also great for your health.

Your occupation off farm, if necessary, should be something dependable, something that will be required even in bad times. Some government jobs meet this standard. Teaching is a good example. Of course, the salary may be reduced, but a job is better than no job. Some kinds of companies produce goods or services that are always needed. Groceries, health services, hardware, (but not clothes), public transportation (not airlines), etc. meet this criterion. You have to think about your individual situation, though. Think about the stability of a particular industry in which your skills are to be used. A computer programmer would find some jobs stable and others not. Hourly labor is very subject to changes, very unstable.

Don't use credit card borrowing. This is really important. If you have a credit card pay it off each time before interest becomes due. Interest on credit cards is sinfully high, and late payment or non-performance charges will eat you alive. For large items get a bank loan. Credit cards and too many big loans are the principal cause of bankruptcy at the present time, and any little nip up in interest rates, or downturn in the economy where people get laid off causes an upturn in bankruptcy.

Both husband and wife should have some insurance. The surviving spouse will miss them not only physically and emotionally, but financially, also. Term is best. Investment by the insurance route is secure, but it has a low payoff, frequently less than inflation.

Two incomes in the family help stability. You need benefits - medical, dental, etc. Getting them by one spouse is important, both is better.

Work hard to keep your marriage stable. Divorce is a disaster in many ways, financial not the least. For farm people it means “kiss the farm goodbye” in all too many cases. Get help from a pastor or councilor if you need to.

There are a lot of obvious things that you do already: avoid addictions (alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, gambling, expensive vacations, etc.), buy sturdy but inexpensive clothes and household items, look for bargains, don't buy until you can pay for things. Don't borrow from loan sharks. Don't put a mortgage on your home to pay other bills, or worse, to finance consumer spending. Better to have ratty clothes, an empty and cold house than no house at all.

It is absolutely painful to think about these things and make decisions, particularly when it requires withholding part of your income you are used to enjoying. People seldom bother to think about money and how to get it, nor was I taught to, but the older I get the more I realize all these things are within the range of rational analysis. Not one person in twenty does it until forced to. Many of the others get burned, some badly.

Electric fence, including danger

2010-02-26T06:28:00.000-08:00

If mainline power is available and dependable, 110 or 220 volt AC (plug it in the wall socket) energizers are usually most practical for permanent fences. Will they raise your electricity bill? Well, depending on the size of the unit, they typically draw 2 to 25 watts. The operational cost of an energizer drawing 17 watts would be about $1.50/month (assuming an electrical rate of $0.12/kilowatt hour).

How dangerous are they? Energizers (chargers) are usually rated in “joules.” (pronounced the way a West Virginian pronounces jewels.) This is a physics unit for measuring energy. It is directly related to the “kick” the fence gives the animal (and human) that shorts it to the ground. My daughter worked in the cardiac care unit of Ruby Memorial Hospital at one time, so I asked her how many joules were used to revive someone whose heart had stopped. She said 450 joules. So I don’t think there is much danger of heart stoppage with a properly grounded commercial charger. But 4 or 5 joules from the fence will “really get your attention,” as they say. I know, because I have been hit many times.

At this point I need to introduce a couple of terms. A capacitor (also called a condenser) is a device for storing electricity. That’s what a battery does, too, but the capacitor is able to let its contents go almost instantly, were a battery stores a lot of electricity and takes some time to let it go.

Volts is a measure of how hard the electrons are pushed through the wire. The more volts the more electrons are pushed through a particular resistance (the animal, or you, if you are not careful).

The way a fence charger works is to take 110 volts (or 220 volts if so wired) off the high line, step it up to several thousand volts to load the capacitor (sometimes more than one) in the charger. This takes about three-quarters of a second, then it switches that line off and hooks the capacitor to the fence. When this happens the fence shares the load with the capacitor. At this point the fence should read a few thousand volts on your meter.

That sounds pretty scary if you don’t know the details. The function of the capacitor is to limit the number of electrons at this high voltage. That much voltage off the high line would “fry” you. In fact, 110 can fry you too, if you are sufficiently grounded so the current of electrons can flow through you. The high line is effectively an unlimited supply of electrons.

The charger lets the charge on the fence drain off to ground within a few thousandths of a second after it starts. The intermittent nature of the charge on a proper electric fence is an important safety feature. Most of the time there is no charge on it, just very briefly for a few thousandths of a second about every three quarters of a second. The intermittent nature of the shock increases the element of surprise too, increasing its effectiveness

If there are weeds on the fence, they drain off the electrons, and so reduce the kick. Fortunately, their resistance is rather high, so some weeds can be tolerated. You need to keep the bottom wire about 17 inches or slightly more above ground, so cattle can eat under it, which helps keep the weeds down. It pays to have the area under the fence properly limed so you have palatable grass there, too.

The resistance in the “voltmeter-fence tester” is very high, so not many electrons drain through it. It does not “short out” the fence.

A good ground for the energizer (fence charger) is important. It will interfere with a telephone cable for several tens of yards. Be careful where you place it. The standard grounding rod, half inch in diameter and six feet long works well. It needs to be down to moist ground, no matter how dry the surface is. The dryer the surface is, the more kick you need in your fence. The rods are made so long to get down to moist earth. Use a steel fence post driver of the type that is a tube with handles on each side to get the rod down as far as you can, then use a sledge hammer. The preferred method is to take it below the surface, and use a clamp to attach a large diameter copper wire, which is also kept below the ground to where it can go straight up to the charger. Use several, preferably four hooked up with the same large diameter copper wire as the first one. Steel fence wire should not be used, particularly below ground – it rusts.

Insulators are made for steel posts, but steel posts should not be considered permanent. You find this type of insulator at feed stores. They soon age. Use treated wood for permanent posts, or locust. Locust serves well if you can find good trees, with no fungus infected wood. Both locust and treated posts have considerable conductivity, so insulators are needed. Get polyethylene or polypropylene plastic insulators. Also don’t use fine wire for permanent fence, deer will break it in no time.

Use “string fence” with polypropylene cords and fine stainless steel wires woven in for temporary fence. Just tie it for connections. Use lots of wrapping in your knots so the tiny stainless wires will come in contact with the steel wires. Get good spools to wind it on, ones designed to roll up extension cords. Take care of it, and it lasts for years. Don’t use the fancy plastic fence posts for permanent fence, they age very fast, and you can’t keep the wires tight. If you plan to reuse temporary posts, get fiberglass. I have used some for ten years. I like three-eights inch round posts which you can get from some fence supply houses and add two adjustable holders for the string fence. This is called “Spider Fence.”

An electric fence is not a physical barrier, like barbed wire and woven wire. It is psychological fence. Animals avoid it, but learn to eat inches from the wire. Animals unfamiliar with it can stumble through. Under extreme conditions predators can drive them through, and baby calves do not understand it the first time they come in contact. They seldom go through twice.

We keep a road wide enough to run a four wheeler along the fence through the woods and where ever we can. Like any fence, they need to be checked often. The four wheeler makes checking fast and makes access for the few needed repairs easy. We keep a few tools with us on the four wheeler any time we go into the pasture so that repairs can be made without a return to the house for tools.

Finally, the electrons repel each other, because they have negative charge. Most of the charge when it moves is carried in the outside layer of the wire. Rust is an insulator compared to the steel or its zinc galvanizing. Wire needs to be changed when it guts rusty. An electric fence will last far longer than barbed wire, though.

Some don'ts for electrical fence: 1. Don’t hook to the high line directly, without a charger. In other words, don’t provide the legal profession with another lucrative case to litigate at your expense. 2. Don’t use barbed wire. The animal needs to get away from the fence. 3. Take the time and go to the trouble to build a good ground. 4. Don’t get cheap plastic stuff. The insulators sold by fence supply houses have additives which make the insulators last and last. 5. Don’t use metal posts for permanent electric fence.

Genomes for Agriculture

2010-02-15T13:38:00.000-08:00

One of the most important things for agriculture that happened the past year not mentioned in the usual farm papers was the arrival of several farm animal genome studies. The one nearest to most of us is the genome of the cow, published in the journal Science for the 24th of April, 2009.

Cattle, Bos taurus (European type cattle) and Bos taurus indicus (India derived breeds) are not closely related to humans in their genetics, compared to many other species. They are specialized for converting low-quality forage into energy dense fat, muscle and milk. They were domesticated 8,000 to 10,000 years ago in the Near East. There are presently about 800 breeds. This variability allows study of genetic and variable traits, including milk production economic gain and tenderness. The most detailed sequencing was done on a Limousine, with comparison to other breeds.

They have 26,835 genes, somewhat more than humans, including about 22,000 genes responsible for coding proteins. It was observed they have many more genes for lactation and immunity than humans. The greater number of immunity genes may be the result of the huge number of different microorganisms in the rumen (which present greater opportunities for infection) or due to the herd life habit of cattle. Another important difference is that in humans passive immunity is gained by placental transfer, but in cattle it occurs by ingestion of immunoglobin IgG in colostrum. Core metabolism is very similar among all mammals

A second article in the same issue studied genetic variation in breeds. It conclude that variation was at least a great in cattle as in humans, in spite of constraints imposed by domestication and breed development. European and indian type cattle diverged 250,000 years ago and the Indian type have somewhat greater genetic diversity. European breeds are now so standardized they might have been breed from 200 to 300 cattle 200 years ago. This is believed to be to breed selection pressures and subsequent selection for milk or beef. Loss of diversity should be of concern to animal breeders, the authors suggest. Statistical evidence shows some of the highest selection pressure was in the genes affecting double muscling, milk yield and composition and intra- muscular fat content.

The genome of the horse, Equus caballus, was published in November. The horse was tremendously important most of recorded history for transportation, draft animals and for warfare from before the time of Alexander the Great to World War II. It is now primarily relegated to recreation, but is of interest to science and medicine because so many of the diseases of man also occur in horses.

Horse DNA is more similar to human than Cattle DNA, and we share many communicable diseases and at least 90 hereditary diseases with them. The most detailed sequencing was done on a Thoroughbred with comparisons to most of the world’s other horse breeds, including American quarter horse, Andalusian, Arabian, Belgian draft horse, Hanoverian, Hakkaido, Icelandic horse, Norwegian fjord horse and Standard bred. The horse genome is smaller than the cattle and human genomes, but larger than the dog genome. One of the remarkable characteristics of the horse genome is how few chromosomal rearrangements there are between it and the human genome.

A second article shows that horses were domesticated in and around Kazakhstan some 5500 years ago. Colors developed rapidly after domestication as the result of selective breeding by ancient farmers.

Tips for Efficiency

2010-02-01T07:43:00.001-08:00

1. When driving the tractor some distance, try to make use of the trip in both directions. If you are on the hill to feed and have a little time, pick up downed limbs and move them to a place to burn or otherwise dispose of them. You can pick up rocks at a remote area and drop them in a road to fill a hole. If you need large rocks to make check dams, carry them off the hill when you return from feeding, don’t make special trips.

2. Store bales near where they are grown, then feed them back on the meadow. Use temporary string fences to protect the bales when you pasture the meadow. Do this if the mud doesn’t get to be a problem.

3. Large trees of useless species or otherwise unsuitable for timber can be removed by burning brush around them.

4. Someone who cuts firewood can be given rights to cut up downed and carry away unusable trees. They can also help clean up after timber cutting operations.

5. If you have pole timber you can cut (or can buy cheaply) pole sheds are a very cheap way to build storage sheds. Use locust poles in the ground. White oak poles or maple make the best rafters. Avoid using hickory, because it rots so easily and there are insects that burrow in the dry wood.

6. If you pick up small rocks in one place, that improves the pastue. They then can be used in roads in place of purchased gravel. Have your children pick them up. Creek gravel is illegal if taken from streams under the control of the Army Corps of Engineers.

7. All lumber should be “sticked up” and kept in the dry with a roof. Have the sawyer make sticks one inch thick and two or three inches wide to use for this purpose. Poplar lasts well in use, but piles of it are subject to boring insects which weaken the lumber and make piles of dust. It is best to use poplar within a year or two of the time it is sawed out.

8. Decking screws now available are much better fasteners than nails for gates, especially, and about every thing else. Also, use the appropriate screws for metal roofing.

9. Keep the tools necessary for what you can do. Don’t be in the position of having to borrow or buy them when a crisis occurs. If you are in the farming business for the long haul this is one of the best investments you can make. Have fencing tools, convenient tools for the mechanic work you will do on your machinery, simple woodworking tools at least. They save time and when you can do it yourself it saves money.

10. Maintain good relations with your neighbors. It’s worth the extra effort to avoid a perpetual fight. Be a good neighbor. Stop and talk occasionally, plow out their driveway when it snows if you have equipment, let them hunt, pick mushrooms, cut wiener sticks, etc. It helps when the cows are out or you accidentally spill dirt or hay on the road, when the odors get strong or other unliked things characteristic of farming industry occur that you don’t have control over. Pulling their car out of the ditch requires a little more care, because a tractor can damage the car. I mention that damage might occur if it is not hooked right, and insist the other man hook his car up. If it is a woman, custom pretty much demands you get down in the dirt, but be careful what you connect to. After a while being a good neighbor gets to be a habit and doesn’t cost any effort. They will pay you back in the same way.

11. Borrow only for things that will make you more money than the borrowed money will cost. Sometimes the benefit is hard to figure out in advance, be careful. Particularly, don’t run a big, expensive truck for personal transportation.

12. Feed cattle in the late afternoon or evening. If you feed in the morning 60-65% of the calves come in the dark. If you feed in the evening 60-65% come in daylight. If you are able to attend them, you have light. Even if you do not, it helps with the predators.

13. Unless you trade a lot, hire your trucking. Put the capital elsewhere.

14. Look for drains, pipelines and other buried stuff when there is a slight skift of snow on the ground, not enough to cover it. The depressions will catch blowing snow and become more conspicuous.

15. Breakers across roads need a little more stone than the rest of the rock based road. If you just put soft dirt from the ditch across the lower side, it will be broken down in a short time. When the breaker gets leveled out and won’t divert water add a three or four inch high row of stone about the size of one or two fists along the lower side and shovel soft dirt from the ditch over it to seal it. After you drive across it a few times it will not seem too high, because the rocks will be driven into the road base below and the soft dirt on top will be forced into the cracks between the rocks.

16. When building a culvert only the downstream side of the fill around the pipe needs to be secured, unless it is two and a half feet high or more. Use a wall of rocks, a concrete wall or some such on the lower side. The reason is that the stream only pushes gently on the upper side. What washes it out, if not properly constructed, is the current down from the top to stream level on the downstream side. When you build a culvert you must constantly watch for sticks that wash downstream and block the entrance to the pipe. Unless you must have a high quality stream crossing, fill in some with stones and be sure to have a stone area below the drop off to rceive any water fall to prevent it from washing out below the crossing. Once again, this applies to intermittent (dry up in a dry time) streams only. Streams with continuous flow are controlled by the Crops of Engineers. See your Natural Resources Conservation Agent about crossings, etc. of these steams.

17. Never hit the same stone twice with a mower or brush hog. Dump stones you pick up in the field into gullies or other spots where they will help, or use them for check dams in runs to prevent rapid runoff. Small rocks make road material.

18. Keep a barrel or two of diesel fuel and equipment to take it out of the barrel by hand in case of power outage or delayed delivery of a new tank of fuel.

19. Keep you fences up in fairly good shape. It’s better than chasing cattle. Use high tensile electric and keep the bottom wire about 17 inches above ground, to keep the grass off. They won’t crawl under that height.

20. Maintain a supply of bolts, nuts and small parts you use often. Don’t have to run to the store for small parts. Same for lubricants like SAE 85W-90, or WD-40. You loose time and money running to the store.

22. Check over machinery before you use it. Seasonal equipment should be repaired and good shape before you put it in storage or during the storage season.

23. Sheds are far cheaper than buying new machines. Don’t let machinery stand out in the weather unless you have it covered. Acid rain isn’t talked about as much as it once was, but it is still with us.

24. Keep a list on your computer of where you buy things on the net. Keep all the information needed for ordering, such as parts numbers, and the internet address.

25. Where possible, make trails along your fences so you can ride the four-wheeler to check fence.

26. Avoid culverts as much as possible. Use rocked stream crossings. Culverts are a nuisance because they stop up all the time. It takes only a few floating sticks to block the opening of a small culvert.

27. The two most convenient ways to thaw frozen locks are: a) Hold the lock in your hands for a minute or so. This is for young, warm-blooded guys, and it is good for a few degrees below freezing. b) For the rest of us and for really cold temperatures take a container of hot water from your house and pour half a glass or so on the lock. Water has about ten times the heat capacity as steel and it doesn’t require huge amounts of hot water.

28. Just as snow can help you find depressions caused by pipe ditches and other recent ground excavations, heavy rains can help you find seeps in your fields. Drive around after a heavy rain and keep your eyes open for unusual wet spots, or water draining down a low place in the hillside. This indicates the water table is above ground while it is rainy, and it means the water table will be nearer to the surface than other places in the field at other times, as well. In heavily traveled places it may be worth a drain.

Borrowed Money

2010-01-18T06:54:00.000-08:00

(caution: some concentration needed)

“Borrowed money” is somewhat of a misnomer. It should be called “rented money.” You have to return the money, but you have to pay for the use of it. The “rent” or fee for the use of the “capital” is called the “interest,” or “rate.” The amount you borrow is the “principal.” The person who lends you the money has great advantages in law and in practice.

In practice, “they” loan to many people and talk to other lenders. Lenders (collectively) have the law written governing loans. You, on the other hand, have, at most, some limited ability to discuss borrowing with other borrowers, but few borrowers are familiar with customary terms and conditions of loaning. You, borrowing infrequently, have to deal from a position of ignorance. It is important to understand the terms of a loan: such things as repayment dates, how interest is figured, and what happens in case of default (if you can’t make a payment). Some terms of a loan are a matter of law, such things as disclosure of terms and conditions, maximum interest, recording loans with the County court (so you can’t get loans from several lenders and they can’t be repaid), what happens if you default, details requiring spouse’s signature, and so on.

In some cases you will keep the money p for a certain length of time, and pay it back with interest p + i. Sometimes the interest is taken out of the money you borrow, p dollars minus i, and then you pay back p dollars. This inflates the amount of income the lender makes for the same interest rate. Commonly, however, you make a series of payments. In some cases you make a payment of p/n dollars at the end of each of n periods of length t, and pay the interest on the total amount you still owe along with each payment, giving a declining payment. Also it is relatively simple algebra to calculate uniform payments, so you pay the same amount each time. Sometimes you make payments for several periods, then have a “balloon payment,” which can be paid off, or refinanced.

It is best to borrow from a reputable institution or a person you can trust. An institution familiar with production agriculture will cut you some slack on weather and the like. A bank will not, unless they know farming. Most industries do not have the variability of weather, unstable markets, etc., as farming does.

The only other feasible choice is to borrow from family, if it is available. If you borrow from an individual who makes this a practice, they may be looking for a sucker. Such an individual will be looking to take your security.

When you borrow money you are, in effect, doing business with a psychopath. (More accurately, has many of the characteristics of dissociative identity disorder. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissocial_personality_disorder )

The lender is a psychopath as a matter of law. You have to pay on time no matter what your needs are. If you have an accident, even an “Act of God” as the law puts it, a pure accident, with no fault of your own, you must pay on time. If a family member has a life and death need for cash (say an operation) you have to come up with your payment anyway. Don’t get over extended! Insurance is a must in case the borrower dies, too, if you want heirs to retain the property. The heirs will often get only a fraction of what it is worth if it is lost.

If you have property beyond indebtedness you can manage, you can think of it as a pillow against the financial uncertainties of life – you can give up some of it for certain other, greater needs, but you cannot “give up” what is in borrowed capital.

In farming you can frequently add enough value to cattle to be able to borrow for immature animals and then sell them at maturity, or sell their offspring. Prices may go down, but value increases considerably. Machines are a little more risky, because they take several years to pay for, but you can do custom work to fill in for payments. Substantial buildings take still longer to pay for, and usually there aren’t any other income possibilities for them beyond the intended use. Pole sheds made from timber cut on the farm is a good bet if you need something but don’t want to invest heavily and pay additional taxes on a good building. Land will take twenty years or more, and paying for it depends on the general economic times and the prospects for the industry. Good land that you can get over and is clear, and adjacent land (so you don’t have to transport machines and cattle, and waste time in travel, and have common fence between you tracts) is important. Proper pens, fences, chutes and tools can be worked into as you need them.

Finally, it is a good business technique to maintain a certain level of indebtedness, even if you can pay it all back. The borrowed money, if it is properly invested can help you grow. “Properly invested” means that the enterprise is capable of paying the interest, paying back the principle anytime you decide to, and justifies your work and management. “Too much” borrowed means that the risk of a declining economy, accidents to key people, and other risks make it impossible to repay.

Historical note: In the past there were “on demand” loans, between persons, mostly. You paid interest and principal on schedule, but the lender could call it all back any time he wanted to, a great evil. This was a business of some persons who acquired extensive lands by it, and made the “Great Depression” of the 1930’s worse.

Thinking about buying land and farming

2010-01-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

The largest investment required for farming is land. The value of the land you farm has little relation to your income, however, since other factors, such as location and development prospects, may influence the price it would be appraised at. You can farm land you don’t own, and that may be your best bet. Rent may be less expensive than buying additional land. If you rent, obviously you must figure gain by calculating the income from farming, and subtract the rent or annual lease. The true gain from the rented land is what you make farming plus what the rent seeker gets from you in rent.

If you are buying land you have to figure gain by calculating the income, subtracting the payment and adding the annual change in value of the land (which may be plus or minus). The change in value of the land is quite difficult to determine. It will surely be a matter of expert opinion, since appreciation of the land (or depreciation) is highly subjective. The exact figure will change from year to year, too. It may be more or less for you than the average guy who comes along.

Land is a very large chunk of your capital and many farmers won’t be in a position to do this kind of calculation. If you want to buy land, you do so because the opportunity comes up, and you want to take a shot at it. You bet you can “make payments” until it is yours. It is done on faith (interest won’t get too high, no accident in the family, government policy won’t change too much, markets wont change too much, etc.) Truly, you see your shot and you take it. Definitely a judgment call for most folks. Better to have a chunk to put “down.”

If you really need this figure, your lending agency may be you best help since they sometimes need a figure based on the market value of the land.

Farming on someone else’s land is a good bet, if you have at least few acres of your own and can negotiate a long term deal. (See more details below.)

In a livestock operation the second largest investment is in cattle. There is a pretty direct relation between the worth of your cattle in a breeding operation and your income prospects. The number of animals you have to sell is related to the number of breeding stock, and the price received is related to their quality. Efficiency is getting as many calves out of the cows as possible and getting as much weight on them as possible. And it also includes good marketing, getting as much as possible for them.

Your third largest investment should be machinery. This should be as small as possible. Machinery ages and in time has to be replaced. It is taxed. You want what will be the least investment that will get the job done in the time and with the labor available. You need tools for all you might want to do, and these accumulate. Some are lost (fencing tools especially), but most are a lifetime investment, and don’t really depreciate. Do you need a large truck? A dump truck, a cattle trailer, a bulldozer, a back hoe? Don’t buy things that can be hired or leased more cheaply. (This is what your community connections are for, in part. They allow you to find out where these things can be obtained and what they cost.) Buying additional equipment implies you have to have more storage, too, a place to put them under cover. But you may justify the additional investment if you plan to do custom work – a stump grinder, for example. But if you justify a piece of machinery this way, you have to do the sales work to get this custom work.

The fourth investment is development. You must have fences and stock handling facilities as a minimum. These are a kicker if you have to build them on someone else’s land. You really need sheds for all equipment, which will be on your own land, of course. You don’t need much. Sheds made of poles cut on the farm are quite adequate, and inexpensive, but be sure of your materials and design. Get advice on what timber to use to avoid insect trouble. It is nice to have a tight building to work on equipment when it is bad weather and for storage of materials that need to be kept out of the rain, but not absolutely necessary. The new tent-like buildings are a good bet for equipment and hay storage. You may need wells and electrification as part of your development.

Out of all these investments, only more and better cattle (or for other enterprises the immediate antecedent of what you sell) will make you more money. But don’t try to overstock your property. You can’t afford to buy feed for less than exceptional animals, and too many animals leads to disease and environmental damage.

Buying (or renting) adjacent land is valuable because it eliminates travel time and transportation. If the land is adjacent the animals can be moved back and forth easily. Fences need not be as secure between the old acreage and the new. You might want to put them in a better location.

So if you are starting, or plan an expansion, renting is a good bet, gaining ownership of cattle and machinery, before buying land. The ideal is to find a farm that the owner is willing to rent to you now and sell to you later.

Today the economy is going backward. The average man in his 30’s today (2009) makes 12% less in real money than he did in the 1970’s. Jobs are hard to find anywhere. You read about hundreds of people applying for a dozen or two new jobs being offered. A significant part of the population lives on welfare. It isn’t uncommon for young adults to be living in their parent’s house beyond age 30. On the other hand, the wealthy are doing very well, and those that depend most closely on them are, too. The dollar is sinking like a rock. Land is sky high. Not a good time to buy! A farmer can’t afford to speculate on these terms. Let the speculators loose their money! Rent!

Buying land is always a risk, but the reward is great satisfaction when it is paid for. But you must do a hardboiled analysis. Intense desire to own helps, but alone it is not enough. You have to think, think, think. And be lucky. And carry insurance if you want your heirs to own what you start.

Spraying for pasture weed control

2009-07-16T07:16:00.000-07:00

We’ve been spraying a good bit this summer. I have been concentrating on a neighbor’s property I farm for a few years and have to catch up on mine, so I’ve been thinking a good bit about spraying. The thing that specifically prompted this item was a conversation with a man who lives a few miles from here.

Roger pointed up to some troublesome pasture across from his place. “It has to be brush hogged every year,” he said. After talking a little bit, we agreed that “Brush hogging is about the same as putting fertilizer on the bushes.” I said what was needed was to spot spray the brush. Roger thought that would do no good , either. This is common idea, but very wrong.

The trick to spraying is to get it right. You have to get the entire foliage wet with properly formulated spray. A lot of people think spraying is not good work. They want to sweat when they work, I guess. Spraying is not big muscle, broad stroke work, it is control and thought work. You have to hit the bush, not just spray toward it, and if it is large or dense, you have to get the other side. too. I want to characterize spraying for effective control of woody plants and some other large pasture weeds.

First of all, you want to decide what you want to kill. Certainly that will include multiflora rose and autumn olive (and the very similar, thorny, slightly harder to kill, tartarian honeysuckle). You will want to vigorously control invasive species, like the new thistles that have come in from the west and tree-of-heaven. But do you want to waste spray on sand brier and the common thistle or other weeds than be controlled by application of lime? Or the many species that can be controlled by mowing at the right time? Each species requires a decision.

Once you have some idea of what you want to control you must decide on the spray. Talk to other people. The Extension Agent, your feed store manager and farmers in the neighborhood can give advice on effectiveness. It is best to use the least amount of spray recommended on the label early in the season. You can begin spraying as soon as the leaves are out in the spring. The concentration given is intended when the spray covers one side of the leaves, you don’t have to drown them, just get 85-90% of the surface. What drops off is wasted. Normally some will miss the target plant. It has little effect on grass, but is hard on legumes.

The least concentration is required in the early season when there is more water and growth is lush. As the season progresses the plants become slightly more resistant and you can move up the range suggested on the label. If you don’t, the kill will become less effective. If it is a rainy time use less, if dry move up to the suggested maximum.

Twisting the outermost part of the nozzle adjusts the diameter of the spray stream. I like to have it spread out to about a foot to eighteen inches at 20 feet from the nozzle. That's too small for close work, and it has to be moved around for large brush at a distance, but seems to be a good compromise.

Do your cleanest field first! These will normally be nearest the house or your starting point. Little plants take little spray, so you are effectively cleaning up more ground by doing the best first. You will be going over this ground later to go further from the house. You can clean up on successive trips a couple of weeks or more later when you can see what you have missed.

All your ground should be gone over each year, if possible. Keeping the “filth,” as folks used to call it, in check, is much easier and cheaper if the weeds never get large. You will find if you clean up an area, including around the edges, that it only “goes back to the Indians” very slowly. Getting the pH up is very helpful, too, because it makes the weeds work a lot harder to get established in thick grass. Also, avoid over grazing, which lets many weed get a start.

The following item on this blog illustrates a spray apparatus that has worked very well for me. At one time I used a tractor mounted sprayer, but as I got older getting on and off became the largest part of the spraying job. The tank behind a four wheeler allows you to sit most of the time but you can easily get off when needed. You can get over a lot of ground when the weed plants are far apart. Having a hand sprayer helps with places too steep or otherwise inaccessible. We still maintain a tractor sprayer for places that require large volumes, such as clearing out along a forest edge, or along a fence line that requires walking some distance and using large volumes of spray. (HINT: You can make your own tractor mounted sprayer for about half the cost of a similar one that comes from a dealer.)

Read the following article for ideas about use of a four wheeler.

Making your four-wheeler work

2009-05-31T17:24:00.000-07:00

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4
Image 5

A four wheel ATV is a delight to ride. In fact, is so much fun many never think of it in any other way. Many folks see it as a great work horse on small farms and large, though. They are great for hunting, checking on trespassers and the like.

It is great for going places in a hurry at low cost. It only needs a trail four feet or so wide. This makes it a great vehicle for checking fences. You have the capacity to carry the necessary tools and parts to fix fence on the machine and can go many places in the woods where a pickup or even a tractor won’t go.

You can use it to check cattle, but must be careful to keep the noise down, particularly if you use it to move them. They can be used to bring cattle in, but the speed and noise frighten the animals if you don’t exercise care. If you want to move a square bale or two or a little feed they do well at that too, because they have better flotation with their soft tires and make far less mud.

I use mine to seed right of way by adding a small seeder designed for the four-wheeler. It takes a little getting used to at first, but the investment is quite low, and if stored in the dry it will last years. Sure beats walking and turning a crank. (See Image 1)

I have made two trailers for my four-wheeler. Two inch square tubing and used car wheels work fine, with a bed of treated wood. Be sure to paint all metal parts before putting the bed on to get longer life. You can use a small trailer ball hitch of the type used for pulling trailers behind a car. That works better for the extreme roll and pitch on rough ground, better than the pin in clevis type of hitch used for tractor implements.

If you are going to need electricity from the battery it is a simple matter to use the type of connection usually used for 110 volts. Get heavy wire to the battery, wrap it securely around some solid part of the four-wheeler and use a sturdy, industrial type female plug on the four-wheeler. The voltage from the battery is 12 volts, and the electrical contacts are well covered. The male plug which is inserted into it will pull out if the trailer or attachment comes off, if you use strong cord, well connected to the attachment. This arrangement is easy to connect and disconnect, but you must use only motors designed for 12 volt direct current, without regard for polarity (+ and - may be exchanged), which will be the case for motors in sprayers, seeders and so forth sold to be used with ATV’s. (See Image 2)

One of the trailers I have was made for spraying brush. You can buy 30 gallon sprayers at Southern States or Tractor Supply or on the net. They expect you to mount these directly on your vehicle, but it impresses me that it would be very dangerous to go on a hillside with a half empty tank of spray sloshing about that high above the soft springs of the machine. The trailer has a much lower center of gravity and no springs. 30 gallons will last an hour to an hour and a half if the target plants are small and widely separated. Most of my work doesn’t require getting off. When the spray runs out it is a quick trip in to mix another batch. (If you have a lot of surface area together, such as the edge of a forest, or a badly grown up spot that must be treated, a larger, tractor mounted sprayer, 200-300 gallons, is a better bet. But for widely dispersed plants, the ATV is the way to go. It saves all that getting on and off the tractor.)

The spray trailer is designed to also carry two hand sprayers, and a five gallon can of basal spray mix. One hand spray can be filled through the spray hose with the nozzle removed, directly from the 30 gallon tank, for places where I walk because I can’t get to it with the machine. The other is dedicated to basal spray for larger trees. It is mixed up in diesel fuel, which is expensive, but it is much cheaper than trying to cover all the foliage on larger trees. Just follow the instructions and cover the bottom 18 inches of trunk. Very large trees (over 10 inches) will require treatment again the second year. (See Image 3)

I use Primier Poly Sprayer model 21220, 2.0 gal, made by Chapin, purchased at

http://www.chapinmfg.com/PartsAccessories.asp

They are made of polypropyline, so are very tough and do not rust. You can buy parts, including a variety of nozzles with different spray rates. A young husky fellow might want the 3 gallon size, but 2 gallon is enough for me. Chapin is very good about service, even small orders.

One trouble I have had is getting the top off the sprayer I use for the diesel mix for basal spray. A new sprayer each season might correct that, but I hold on for several years. In that time the diesel gets to the polypropylene a bit and makes the tops stick if you put them on enough to prevent air leak. The following photo shows how I get around this. (See Image 4)

The blue strap is tie-down strap, such as you would find at Tractor Supply or a comparable source. It is attached to the trailer bed. The orange strap on the stick is the same material, a different color. Just wrap on carefully and twist. The diesel mix sprayer is painted yellow so it won’t be mixed up with the water sprayer, which is left the original blue-green.

The other trailer is long enough to carry fence posts and tools to set them. Although we drive all posts we can, there are always some on ground too steep and inaccessible to get the tractor to. The little trailer is the same width as the four-wheeler and is ideal for getting materials to these spots. The picture shows a reel for letting out wire the way a commercial “Spinning Jenny” would. This can be made from scrap material. (Use screws driven by an electrical drill for better strength). (See Image 5)

You have to drive slow, to avoid bump things out, in rough places. The tailgate must be secured with a wire or a small bolt. If I was doing it again, I would make higher sides.

2009-03-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

Money
(Some philosophical thought)

There are several kinds of money or money equivalence which vary in interconvertability and other characteristics. These relations are something you have to get straight in your mind.

Land is one kind of money. It always has a value (it never disappear like stocks and bonds can), but the value varies with time. Land was at a low when I started to farm in the 1950’s- $20,000 was the price for about any piece of land, large or small. It’s not that way anymore! The price of land goes down with depression, superabundance of farm products (the case when we bought our farm), cheap imported food and so on, and goes up with abundant money, increased population and desire for rural residence (the present situation) and better access because of new roads.

Land is difficult to get anytime, because location, topography, prior use, size of tract and similar characteristics determine the usefulness to the buyer. It is easy to sell (if the buyer can get the necessary financing), in part because there are so many people who benefit from you selling it. Some of these are: the broker (about one-twelfth of your sale price), the banker (who adds one third or more to the buyer’s cost, if he does not have ready cash), the tax man (tax is always greater after land changes hands) and the fellows who supply the inputs to change raw land into a farm. The fellow that buys land is like the fellow in Greek myth that had to carry the weight of the earth on his back, because there are so many people who add to the burden.

It is often wise to let someone else own much of the land you farm and rent what you farm, if you can make an agreement that is favorable and stable. You need some land of your own for a homestead for the farm, a place to keep machines and have some stock and crops so you can use close-up management of these resources. Land ownership is more a goal than a method.

Land also is a place to live that conveys much the same benefits as owing your own house. It conveys status, it is an excellent collateral for loans (because you are highly motivated not to loose it) and it is something you identify with psychologically. It gives space between yourself and neighbors.

Buying and selling land will be considered in more detail elsewhere.

Labor is another kind of money. You can sell your own or buy someone else’s, and you can use it for your own benefit, or your family’s. Many people who farm both sell and buy labor, that is, they work for a wage or salary or have a business, and hire help on the farm. Labor can be traded (trade work with your neighbors), too. And, it can be wasted (by doing the wrong work or by using an opportunity to work for doing something else that does not give equal satisfaction), just like any other form of money. Everyone has a huge supply of their own labor at birth, and it is the only thing many people ever have much of. Managing one’s own labor is the biggest single problem in a free society. Labor must be a major input to farming.

Assets are a third form of money. If you are going to farm you must have fences, cattle and machinery to work with, whether you have land or not. Assets are more mobile than land and may be accumulated more easily, being bought and sold over time. If you make a mistake in other forms of money, this is the area you have to make it up in. If you want to grow larger, this is where you must achieve it. Your assets incease by the birth and growth of your animals, crops and timber. The increase may be maximized by careful management, by supplying inputs such as fertilizer and lime, labor, adequate fences, predator control, brush control and all the rest. And they can wasted away by neglect.

Cash is like oil and grease, it makes the whole thing go easier up or down. You have to have cash to get the goods you need from others, and that’s what you have to supply to compensate for most of your mistakes. But it is not the objective of farming. You hear of people hoarding money, thousands of dollars hidden way. Not good! It can be stolen or lost and you have nothing, and it doesn’t make more money (in the broadest sense) sitting under your mattress. Too much show of cash makes others envious. Having lots of money makes it easier to make bad decisions, because you don’t think much about how it is used.

Good will is not usually interconvertable with other kinds of money, but it has value. Cattle get out, fences need to be kept up, various disputes occur, and the good will of your neighbors is valuable. A farmer has many things he can give away that mean more to his neighbors than to himself. Fire wood, help in emergencies, a little tractor work, or machine loan, hunting, information, even a good story now and then are very valuable in this regard. Respect is something everybody needs, and like love, it is something you get more of when you give it away.

Money isn’t everything. If it is to you, I don’t recommend farming. There are more profitable places to put your money. The biggest cash payoff in farming is to get out of it. The biggest input is the labor of thinking it all out. Far more than labor in the usual sense. Fortunately, you can think and labor at the same time, and there is no better time to think.

2009-02-22T15:27:00.000-08:00

Dealing with natural resource extractors

You have multiple use of your land whether you want it or not. The state claims ultimate domain, but aside from that there are a host of others who have an interest in your land and how you farm it. Hunters, people who would like to gather woodland products, such as firewood and edible plants, people concerned with the quality of the water which leaves your land (since they catch some of it for use down stream), people who need right of way, such as electricity, water, and telephone companies, and those interested in extracting natural resources, such as coal, timber, gas and oil.

People in the last group require very careful attention, because they have the capacity to provide considerable income, and also to do considerable damage. The product they remove has great value, they use large machinery, frequently requiring them to borrow a lot of money, which means they are always in a hurry-up mode. They employ people who receive good wages for skilled work, so they have large expenses, too. They are invariably in it for the money, and you have to negotiate details of what they do on your land. Both you and the businessman want to get as much for yourself as possible out of the difference between what he gets for the material extracted and his expense.

The extractor usually has a much larger business than your farm, He deals with land owners frequently, with the resulting advantages in knowledge of applicable law and business practice. Oil and gas drillers, for example, associate with other oil and gas drillers and with lawyers who practice oil and gas law. And they take out leases frequently, so they are familiar with what land owners will try to get. You can usually deal with them on such matters as where a new right of way will go, location and type of fences to be built, size of culverts, and other things related to your farming operation. Large corporations will have specialists in dealing with various personality types among land owners. If one can’t connect with you, they will send another, perhaps tougher, agent.

Companies offer a standard payment, which may be a fraction of the value of the product removed, such as one-eighth royalty, or a price for some unit of measurement, such as a ton of coal. Getting a higher price than the standard is difficult. You may be offered less, so you have to find out what the standard is. In cases where the product is going to produce greater value for the extractor, such as low sulfur coal or thin cover over coal, you may be able to extract a premium, but you really have to study thoroughly, know what you are doing and negotiate well.

With timber it may pay to hire a registered forester. He can “mark” trees to be removed, sparing small trees to regenerate the timber. He can “walk” the tract and make measurements to get a very accurate estimate of the timber will to be removed by cutting the marked trees. He can arrange bids for the sale and oversee the cutting operation to see that the laws are followed on your land. This will cost about 8 or 9% of the sale price, but many think it is worth it, not to have to deal with the timberman, especially on large tracts or high value timber. I sell small amounts of good timber and some low grade timber myself from time to time.

Since you make a sale of this sort infrequently, think, think, think about what is going to happen. Once the contract is written, it is written in stone. Errors and omissions can seldom be corrected. You need to think about where roads will be bulldozed, where spoil will be deposited, where piles of trees will go from well platforms (and what their sale value is, because you are entitled to that, even if the value is too small to market). You need to think about where and what kind of fence you will need during and after extraction. Where will check dams be needed, and where will the rock come from? Is there a spring that needs to be protected? Try to visualize what will happen. Go to sites the extractor has worked on previously. Ask the landowners there what they learned.

You must read the contract very carefully – you are the one ultimately responsible for your interests. Think about what each paragraph does for the lessee. Does he need the thing it gives him? Does it give more than he needs? For example, does the lease specify the geologic formation that is his target? It should not surprise you that the lessee will frequently use wording which gives him formations beyond his immediate objective. An example of this is a coal lease which is sought for a seam near the surface, but which allows the lessee to take ownership or extraction rights for all coal, no matter how deep. In general, minerals become more valuable as time passes, so your heirs can loose out big time. Another hazard is paragraphs concerning liability. You should not put yourself in a position where you become liable for negligence or mistakes of the lessee. The lease should expressly say the lessee assumes responsibility for his accidents. What about damage to your business, such as cows being killed by drinking water from the process, or being killed by the operation? Read it all. Read it several times. With your mind “in gear.”

A lawyer can be of some help, especially if he/she has experience with the industry on large dollar items. A lawyer would be familiar with technical terms, and if familiar with the industry, that is, with common practice in the industry. Remember, though: 1. the lawyer is in it to make money, too, and 2. if he is in the mineral extractive industry it is most profitable for him to mind his interests with the industry. This is not to say a lawyer will routinely try to get you to sign a lease that is not good for you, but he can’t be expected to alienate a segment of his potential clientele. Lawyers are most dangerous in connection with major utilities, and in situations where you have a serious adversarial position with the mineral extractor. If you are trying to sue a utility, you need a lawyer with serious ethical commitment.

You are a land owner, but that is a kind of business, and ultimately you will have to live under the conditions of the contract. Don’t expect someone else to carry your responsibility for you.

When the extractive process is going on, try to remain business like and in contact with the person in charge of the operation. Appearing interested in the process will do more at less expense than any other tactic you can employ. If there is a problem, discuss it, but don’t expect to get expensive changes. Don’t expect to “get tough” – the extractor will doubtless have dealt with many trying that before you. Make notes and take pictures of the action, before and after pictures, and pictures of problems that arise. This is a record, and it is proof of how things were at a certain time.

Dealing is knowledge-based work. You may have to hire help in the form of a lawyer, but remember he is your employee. His function is to give you advice in his area of expertise, not to run your business. Ask for alternatives. Ask "What will happen if I do so and so?" Try to be creative – think of things that others are not thinking about. You are the one to get the profit or loss. Your mineral royalty is much more important to you than it will be to the lessee or the lawyer.

Don’t ever threaten anyone. That is guaranteed to take you downhill in a hurry, with no return. Do what you have to do tactfully, but don’t loose your self-respect and your contact with the other party.

On renting, buying and partnering a farm

2009-02-11T12:40:00.000-08:00

Renting or buying a farm is a big deal, one of the most important decisions that a renter or a landowner will make. This article concerns some thoughts on the business aspect of renting and buying. You want a written document that will guide each party in what the other expects, and will secure to each what he has to have to make an economic deal. Both should remember that the other has to have certain things to profit from the exchange, to make it worthwhile.

First, a note on using a lawyer. A lawyer is like an architect, in fact more so, in that you have to tell him what you need (or want). The lawyer knows very little about the farming business. He doesn’t do farming, he has never seen the farm and he doesn’t know the people involved. The farmer is the expert on what has to be done, it’s his life, and he has the responsibility. Don’t depend on a lawyer who doesn’t have training or experience in writing the specialized kind of contract you need. You must take the initiative. Lawyers who know farming are “rare as hen’s teeth” in West Vrginia

Any lawyer can help you avoid falling afoul of the law in adversarial situations, but that is about all. Lawyers all think farming is so simple - there is nothing to writing a farm lease or other document. But they will invariably follow a house or business model for the contract, not a farm model. You need to think about everything you need and be sure it gets in. And like everything else in life, you may still get surprises. Don’t be passive.

Renting is not going to involve big money. The best interest of both parties, renter and landowner, is to keep the place up and avoid adversarial relations with the neighbors. The property that is to be rented must be clearly stated and what the renter can do with it described, and someone designated to be the lessor contact person if a group owns the farm. It should say when the money is due and how much, and the length of time the farm lease is to last (such as ten years, or ten years and as long thereafter as both parties agree).

At this point the lessor’s interest and lessee’s interest diverge. The lessor’s interests include: determination of who will be responsible for damage – if cattle get out, farm assets are damaged, etc. What is the lessee allowed to do? Does it include cutting timber, hunting, fishing, digging mushrooms, ginseng, sassafras and the like? Camping? If brush hogging is required, it should be written in. Likewise fence repair, any required rebuilding of fence, maintenance of roads, etc. that the lessor expects.

The lessee’s interests include: can the lessor drive through the fields at any time? Can the lessor make any use of the facilities? Who is responsible for upkeep? If the lessee must leave, is the cut and stored hay his? Does he have to clean out the barn/s before leaving?

Both parties should have a clear understanding of reasons and procedure to remove a farm tenant. Where housing is not involved, it can be rather simple. If the renter plans to live on the rented farm there is a lot of additional law that becomes applicable because of that. If you keep an eye on the property and notice and act on problems early enough, it helps a lot. Especially if a rented house is involved.

Some things beyond the contract should be ascertained by the lessee before signing. Are there continuing complaints from any neighbor, such as straying animals, odors from farming, excessive dust from a neighbor’s road, a history of children or dogs in the neighborhood intruding, complaints about manure in the waterways and so on? If so, it would be best to look elsewhere. If you have any suspicion, talk around the neighborhood. Don’t rely on the lessor to act against his own interest, even if that would be the moral thing to do! Observe, observe, observe and think, think, think!

The most important part of buying a farm is when. Land varies immensely in price over the decades. In 1962 any farm sold for $20,000, regardless of how large the farm and how fine the house was. Today that wouldn’t buy ten remote acres with a tent on it! Part of the difference is the decline in value of the dollar. It has lost (2008) 18% of its value since 2000, according to the Official United States Inflation Calculator. Part of the low price of land in 1962 was at that there were tremendous farm surpluses. This depressed what you could make from a farm, and consequently what the farm was worth. The population was lower, and industry was booming, too. The lucky ones of us coming of age at that time had the chance of a lifetime. However, $20,000 in 1962 represented as much “real money” (purchasing power) as $140,678 as this is written in 2008 (determined by the Consumer Price Indicator calculator).

The present may or may not be a good time to buy a farm. The currency is very unstable, but the demand for food is rising. Grain looks good, but other countries can produce cattle, which can be imported, so demand for meat is difficult to predict. Land is notoriously high now. Maybe if you have a good income elsewhere and want to invest it, or money to invest, or adjacent land is available, it might be a good risk. At best it won’t disappear completely like so many paper assets (stocks and bonds) did in the “Great Depression” of the thirties. There has been a saying around Central West Virginia for the last two decades or so, “If you want to go into farming, get a car dealership first.” The ordinary farmer should consider renting land, if possible, until he has the assets to operate the new land and put up a hefty down payment.

The second most important part is where. If you already own, and adjacent land comes up for sale and it can be farmed, this might be your chance. Adjacent land is much more valuable. Take it from someoneone who has farmed two tracts 12 miles apart. Adjacent land will reduce fence by the common border, will eliminate the need for travel and transportation of equipment and farm products.
You must have a very good farm on the other end to overcome the cost of much travel.

If you are buying a residence too, the thoughtful person will also be aware of the cost of too much distance from stores, utilities, school bus routes and also church, if so inclined. The quality of the land should be of obvious importance in buying a tract to be farmed.

If you are buying or selling to a family member or someone you trust, consider a “land contract.” When you buy something that will take a long time to pay for, the interest will be one third to one half as much as the principal. If the buyer doesn’t need all the money immediately, he can finance it for you. This arrangement cuts out the middleman who makes the loan, because the seller receives the interest. You should be able to negotiate a lower rate from the seller than a standard lending agency. You will need to talk to someone familiar with this practice and will want to work with a lawyer.

The written agreement between the four parties (including the two wives) when we purchased the our farm was written by a Harvard Law graduate, and was so inadequate one manager of Farm Credit was on the verge of denying us credit until we got something better. The agreement made no provision for the responsibility of the parties. My partner never did any work, and almost nothing to compensate. I made two or three trips to State College, PA, home of Penn State, to get something this Farm Credit manager was happy with. (They have expertise in doing work for serious farmers at Penn State.) I told the Penn State lawyer straight out what the situation was. He dallied and I dallied and finally the manager moved elsewhere and the whole thing fell through. I don’t know if my partner would ever have agreed to it. A partnership contract is difficult, of course, because duties would have to be defined if written properly. There’s nothing worse than a non-performing partner. I know, I’ve been there. Make a dime, share a nickel, loose a dime, make it back by yourself!

A partnership agreement should include the following, at least: What the duties of each person would be, how decisions will be made, what the labor, money, machine, land, etc., input from each partner will be, how earnings will be divided and when (monthly, annually), and how expansion will be handled, or reduction, and termination. Also, if there is housing involved, who will live in each dwelling, who will be responsible for upkeep and repairs additions and such.

There should be formal statement of how records will be kept, both of finances and farm operations. This could be considerable on farms keeping livestock. How will demands such as divorce and disability be handled? These do happen, and they can destroy all the partners.

It takes a certain amount of “guts” and diplomacy to do this. You have to be objective, though, to avoid hard feelings later on and to assure continuity. You must be objective, It’s better to be prepared.

2009-02-01T16:14:00.000-08:00

Fence Building

There is but one fence and electrified high tensile is its name! There is a certain technology you have to follow, but there is considerable latitude also. A three wire high tensile fence is legal (in West Virginia), if properly built. Posts may be set 75 feet or more apart, but must be close enough to follow the contour of the ground. It is quite adequate to keep bulls and cows in heat separated, the only fence that will do so. However, cattle can be stampeded through it, and new born calves will fumble through, apparently they do not understand the wire is the cause of their pain.

Let’s discuss how it works in general terms. The controller loads a capacitor with electricity, this is allowed to run into the fence for about three thousandths of a second. If anything is in contact with the fence and the ground it will get shocked at this point. After the very brief period the fence is unloaded, that is, the charge is allowed to drain away into the ground. This will repeat in about three-fourths of a second. The electrical quantity that causes pain is the energy that passes from the fence wire to the ground through the animal (or unfortunate person), not the voltage. Energy is measured in joules (pronounced the way West Virginians pronounce “jewels” - jewlz).

The capacitor mentioned previously determines how much energy the charger will hold. Typical values are 8 to 15 joules for a 110 volt charger. The charge is limited by the capacitor in the charger. This is safe, that much electrical shock will not damage your body. My daughter worked in the Cardiac Care unit at Ruby Memorial Hospital, so I asked her what charge was used to restart a person’s heart. She told me 450 joules. So there seems to be a considerable margin for safety. I don’t recommend touching an electric fence while standing barefoot in a stream, of course. A charge from considerably less than fifteen joules is an emotional experience that will be remembered for a long time, I can assure you! The idea is for the fence to cause pain, so the animal will avoid it. You don’t want to hurt people or hurt or damage animals.

Several things affect the amount of energy that a charger actually supplies to the animal. One is the quality of the insulation. The polyethylene and ceramic insulators available are excellent, in effect allowing no charge to leak off. Another is loading by grass or brush. This is often significant, and so one should place the lowest wire17 (or a little more) inches off the ground for cattle, unless there is some special reason. This height would be a joke for barbed wire, the cattle would lift it with their heads and go right under. Keeping the bottom wire up is one of the hardest things for someone used to building barbed wire fences has to learn. I know, it took me two decades! This height also encourages cattle to eat the grass under the fence, an important consideration. You don’t want to supply the labor to trim it out if the animals will do it. If the wire touches the ground, or a metal post, serious leaks will occur.

Your “fence tester” reads in kv (kilovolts), because it is difficult to measure joules, and once the charge is in the fence, the energy (or pain) delivered in a short circuit (you or the animal) is about proportional to the voltage. The animal stands in “bare feet” on the ground. I’ve never seen the ground so dry that they challenge electric fence, but I understand this is a problem in the arid West. You wear shoes or boots, which are good insulators, so you only get full energy when you are on a knee or sitting on the ground. If you wear lined leather gloves of the sort ordinarily used in winter you can handle all but a very hot fence with your hands.

I never use metal posts – wood for permanent and fiberglass for temporary, corners are larger posts set in concrete with no braces. Or drive six-inch posts on firm ground. More than three wires are best for approaches to pens where you work cattle, where you plan to wean feeder calves, and along the road where cows may be with very young calves. In these areas we use six wires, posts at about twelve feet, and in some areas “stiffners,” the “T” shaped fiberglass rods with notches, halfway between posts. Make your own “clips” from short pieces of wire left over from fences. The ones you purchase do not last very long. Cows will try to keep their baby calves away from 2 or 3 wire electric fence, but once in a while they will get through. It is best to build a more secure fence (six wirres) if you plan to have new born calves along the road. When they escape in other directions they will come back through the hot fence. Only a small fraction ever get through, and even those learn very quickly. Occasionally one will get stuck on the wrong side, so look for them when you feed.

If you buy animals that are not used to an electric fence, you have to train them. Put them in a lot that is secure, and put an electric fence across it. A temporary string fence is OK. Feed on one side and put the new animals on that side. They will learn what electricity is, and will approach all fences more gingerly. If a few get through, let them remain on the second side while you feed on the first side. Let them get hungry and try it again. The way a bovine checks the fence is by touching it with its nose, the most sensitive part of its body. An animal which is familiar with electric fence will be easier to control with other kinds of fence, too.

You need 2 to 2.5 kv on the fence to control animals. More is better. This is a fair jolt for you, too, but your shoes help insulate. Use 4.0 kv or better to train. Once they are trained, they do not challenge a fence for weeks, and if you have a gate that uses wires and hooks, they can be hard to get through the gate when you want to move them. The tube gates that are widely used work much better for getting animals from one field to another.

Internal fences on our place are all two wire, the second one mainly for a safety factor. Fences through a woods are not put directly on trees, because trees grow over the insulators or pull nails through the polyethylene insulators and let the wires drop. We use treated 2x4 “ insulator boards” to space the wires like they are on posts, and spike them to the trees through holes cut in the board the size of the spikes drilled through the 2x4’s. (Use junk trees, because the tree must be cut above the top nail for timber.) Do not drive the spikes all the way in, leave an inch or so for tree growth. These “insulator boards” are made at the house of scrap treated lumber on rainy days, and kept for use when needed.

We use barbed wire only in places too isolated to reach with electric fence. The back side of our farm is a strip mine high wall, and we need a few roads fenced where the miners left a road to the isolated hill top. We do not use high tensile, non-electrified fence, due to the necessity of keeping it very tight. For sorting pens we use high woven wire with posts at ten to twelve foot intervals. Electrified fence is not suitable for crowding animals. Even if it is made tight enough so they can’t force their way through, the electrical shocks would make them too wild to handle. We also use woven wire on the road side of the field where calves spend the first two weeks.

Temporary fence can be made with “Polywire” string and fiberglass rods for posts. The Polywire is polypropylene (the plastic used for ropes) with several strands of stainless steel woven in to cary electricity. I always use two strands. The conductivity is not as good as the standard wire, so you have a limit as to how long a fence can be made with it and still be effective. I can’t advise on this distance, because it depends on the charge on the fence you attach it to.

Two uses we have made of temporary fence are to isolate the bales in one corner of the meadow while pasturing it and second to funnel animals into an alleyway. Longer temporary fence can be made with fine gage wire. Either can be wound up effectively on the plastic reels sold to wind longer extension cords on.

To be secure when animals are under stress, such as a sorting lot, the best choice is woven wire. I believe the final pen before a cattle chute for working or loading should be made from two inch lumber and be high enough to prevent cattle from jumping over. Five feet four inches will hold all but the most wild animals. The posts should be ten feet apart or less for four board 2x 8 fences in such a lot.

Gates for sloping ground can be a problem. You want to set posts vertically, but the gate, if it is square, does not adapt to the slope of the hill. You can get around this by making a gate yourself, using hardwood, preferably white oak since it has the best rot resistance. Use a single 3/8 or 7/16 bolt in each end of the horizontal board and don’t tighten the bolts up to the point they prevent the end of the gate from being lifted. Set the post the gate is to be hinged to first, and tie to it loosely with wire or good rope. Then set the other posts the outer end will have to contact. This is necessary because the width of the gate will change as the outer end goes up or down. This isn’t beautiful, but it works. In situations like this you need to put (very small) gravel in the walkway, because it will erode badly when cattle go through it in wet weather.

Movement of Water Above Ground

2008-12-20T16:07:00.000-08:00

Every watercourse carries both water and sediment.

Practical

My son, who has a Masters in Geology, says a professor told his class it is not worthwhile to try to influence movement of water by bank stabilization, dams, etc. This may be true in the sweep of geological time, but it is not true in the time span of our life. We can make improvements that earn enough more to pay for themselves and benefit us in just a few years. Some of the things you can do above ground (when allowed by law) follow.

The only practical way to preserve a bank where there is cutting on a high gradient intermittent stream is to place stones too big to be moved by the highest flow. We are fortunate to have rocks available on our farm, but it is a hassle to move them from the strip job to streams. I have carried them down when I return from feeding, taking weeks to complete a job, one rock a day.

The creek is, by law, owned by the State of West Virginia, as are all “navigable streams.” This is interpreted as any stream that is not intermittent (does not dry up). Navigable streams are nominally under control of the Army Corps of Engineers. This goes back in common law to a time before the U. S. was a country. The king owned the streams in England. When the American Revolutionary War occurred his ownership fell to the government of Virginia, and when West Virginia broke away, it got the stream ownership. You control the access to it only, but this allows you to keep trespassers out, including fishermen and gas companies who want to pump into their tank trucks or dump out of them.

Presently we have a stream bank erosion plan registered with the U. S. Corps of Engineers and the Soil Conservation folks. You cannot have a (formal, by law) stream crossing without their consent, but we are likely the only farm on Jesse Run (10+ square mile watershed) which does. Other businesses must have one, too, such as a gas company. Materials are not to be filled in or removed from a stream or wetland. Legal use of creek gravel is a thing of the past.

At one time Soil Conservation Service was into straightening streams in a big way, 50 and more years ago. The big stream across from our house had been straightened and put against the south wall of the valley not too long before we came to Jesse Run. John Kolb’s creek (the farm adjacent to ours) had the one big bend cut off, too. If you study the fields, you can find several courses water took in the past. The stream up by the coal road had been straightened, as has the one nearest our house.

There has been an effort to keep cattle from going into steams by conservation interests, because they degrade the banks, and muddy the water. Streams are a great place for cattle to get water, though. What they want you to do is to build watering troughs and fence cattle away from steams. That may be possible for main streams, but not feasible for intermittent streams such as the three that flow south through our property into Jesse Run.

These smaller streams will have a number of crossings. Check dams below the crossings will help to stabilize them, and you may have to maintain a few additional check dams made of rocks, to stabilize these streams. Keep one point along the top of check dams below he surroundings, and let the edges come up to or slightly above the steam bank. Slope the downstream side and/or allow impact of the stream at high flow to hit rocks so the check dam will not be undercut. Go for several small ones, rather than few large ones. Watch and maintain them – usually little is needed.

Where cattle run through heavily used lots you can use rocks in another way. Cattle don’t like to walk on rocks, so you can put large rocks along the streams to control where they walk. The lot where we keep heifers has a stream quite close and parallel to a fence. We place rocks about a foot or so in two dimensions between the fence and the steam to keep them from mashing in the bank between the stream and the fence.

Try using a few piles they won’t want to walk over (one rock thick) every fifteen feet or so perpendicular to the fence and the stream, just so they won’t walk along the fence. If this doesn’t stabilize the banks in some places, you may have to fill piles at shorter intervals.

Particular attention will have to be paid in some areas. We have a stream behind a concrete block well house in the middle hollow, because it is in a very high traffic area. Loss of the block building would ruin a very expensive watering system, which is quite important in a dry year. If it starts to wash, we will build up the watercourse with large rocks so the wall remains intact. The entire channel can be lined with rocks, which is called rip-rap, and you may have to do that in such a location.

If you build a culvert, stabilize the down stream side by using rock or some other method. You don’t need to stabilize the upstream side unless it is quite high. Water piles up against it in times of high water but has little effect. If water flows over the culvert, however, it washes out the fill on the lower side where it splashes over the steep slope, and can make the culvert impassable.

There is a sedimentation basin in one of our small streams near the creek. This is to catch the considerable amount of sediment that comes from the hill. It needs to be cleaned out and the sediment transported every second year or so. We should also have one in the other small south-flowing streams, but there would be some considerable expense in cleaning them and transporting the sediment to some appropriate place. Sedimentation basins should be fenced off to keep the cattle out of them.

Drainage of storm water in small areas is best accomplished by a grassed waterway. The idea is to maintain a broad shallow area that is well grassed over. The grass will contribute to removal of suspended matter, mostly clay and organic debris, from the drainage area above it.

However, if a continuous stream runs for days, several times a year, a channel will develop. This can further develop into a gully if not controlled. Trees along the stream are the easiest control measure. Usually you find them in place. Just don’t remove them. If it is necessary to establish them, Sycamores are a good choice. Willow is easy to establish, just make cuttings three feet long abut the size of your thumb and stick them in place several inches down where they can get plenty of water. I don’t like willows as well as sycamores because they are more difficult to control and the wood is never of any value. Sycamores can be cut and the roots will sprout up again.

Farm roads are a largely ignored area of erosion. Crushed rock is the only real answer. Sometimes you can pick up small rock in your fields, helping both the place where the rock comes from and the place you put it on the road. Water must not be allowed to flow down the road. It washes away the rock and makes gullies. The answer is breakers. Get a technician to help with this. The grade of the breaker and distance apart depend on the grade of the road, and what area drains into the road. The breakers should drain onto established grassland, preferably not too steep. Expect the sediment from the breaker to build up a hump where the breaker ends. Sometimes this becomes too large to allow proper drainage, over a period of decades. In this case the hump must be removed or a ditch maintained through it.

The lower side of a breaker requires special attention, especially if the road is used frequently. If you use the bulldozer to maintain it, and there is plenty of rock, you can push up a lower side of rock. If you don’t have the opportunity to do this put some rock in place, cover it with plenty of dirt and add more rock, building up until you have a pile of rock and dirt well mixed large enough so that it will be high enough to control the flow when it settles. The dirt is necessary to seal the water into the breaker and to keep the rock in place. The rock is necessary to prevent wheel tracks from draining water through the breaker.

The objectives always are (1) to slow the movement of water, (2) to hold the sediment in place, and (3) to prevent gullies and minimize loss of top soil and fertility.

You don’t have to speed up the runoff of water. It can find its own way down hill very well, thank you! When it does speed up, it takes solids with it, and you have erosion.

Descriptive

Streams of intermediate gradient, such as one sees away from the mountains, are a series of pools, each empting into the next. These pools are formed in relatively erodable material, clay or loam, with some smaller rock. The lower end of the pool is blocked by coarser material and the water flows rapidly down a shallow course over riffles into the next pool. This coarser material is sometimes brought into the main stream at the riffles by a smaller side stream with higher gradient (slope) and sometimes it is deposited by a change in direction of the stream. Bars and riffles are constantly changing shape, in large part due to rocks moving down stream. Rock size is an indicator of how fast the water flows over the riffle. Bigger rocks in a deposit mean faster water, because the smaller ones have washed on down stream.

In central West Virgnia all our small streams are high gradient for their size, and are inherently unstable. Over a period of geological time (a very long time) the stream has flowed everywhere between the valley walls – that movement defines where the valley is. Changes in the position of streams come very rapidly, and may seriously disrupt your fields, leaving places you cannot get to, or small irregular fields. In the mountains, where there is a high gradient and sufficient water supply, streams may have a rocky bottom even at normal rates of flow. The sediment in streams, and the deposits along streams may include larger, rounded rocks which have moved some distance. They become rounded by bumping into each other, generating smaller pieces. This rounding down process ends with sand. Sand particles are of such size that in water surface tension of the wetted surface acts as a bumper to form a limit beyond which the size of the particle can not be reduced by bumping. (Very fine grained sand is formed by wind in deserts). Smaller particles in streams are formed by chemical action only.

A basic principle is that in going from a higher level to a lower one, water must dissipate energy. The amount is directly proportional to mass of water moving and distance it drops vertically from one point to another along the stream. At normal flow this is little, but in flood stage it is immense. The stream dissipates this energy by extending its length. It does this by developing meanders (bends). It also dissipates energy by warming the water, but so little you can’t measure it. Loss of energy also happens when the water goes over a falls or riffles, and when it rubs on the banks and bottom or hits other obstructions.

For emphasis, let me repeat, a stream is not uniform in cross section, and does not have uniform grade from higher to lower levels. Considered in the vertical dimension, it is a series of pools, deep quiet spots with riffles between. These riffles are often locaterd where rocky sediment is washed into the main stream by side streams, but appear elsewhere, too. Also, looking down from above, the pools at high flow are not identical with the pools at low flow, riffles having less effect at high flow. Any cross section varies when the water becomes deeper with higher flow.

Changes in the course of streams come at high flow. Double the speed of the flow and the size of rocks that it can move increases by the fourth power (x = awE4 where x is the rate of flow of the steam in any convenient units, such as feet per second, w is the mass (or weight) of the rock and a is a constant relating the units of flow and mass). This relation between rate of flow and mass of the rock that can be moved is one of the highest power laws in nature. The rocks moving at the bottom of the stream abrade (sandpaper) the sides and bottom of the stream. The rocks are more dense than the water (rocks are typically 2.8 times as dense as water), and so are more affected by force of movement (inertia) than water.

Any place water gets up over the land at high water, deposition takes place. If the water is slow and shallow, deposition is slight, and the particles are fine. The presence of grass or tree growth helps deposit solids, because it slows the flow and catches debris. If the water is a foot or two deep, deposition can take place rapidly. I have noticed a lot of sand deposited in some places where it must have been suspended two feet above the low flow level. Notice the elevation of the banks of a stream. I take this to be the equilibrium condition between erosion by the stream propelled sediment on the bottom and the deposition by high water on the surrounding land. Much of the finest sediment, however, goes all the way to the ocean, where the salt water causes it to loose its ability to stay suspended. Deltas (like the Mississippi delta) form where salt causes the suspended small particles to fall out.

If you observe carefully at normal flow, you notice that the outside of a steam curve (the side the stream is thrown against, the cutting side) is vertical, and the other side is slanting from the field level down toward the outside. The outside is being cut away at high flow. Vegetation is an effective barrier to cutting, if it extends to and below the bottom of a steam. Trees are the most important controllable influence on movement of banks. Keep the banks relatively clean, let trees grow where you want the bank to hold, cut them out where you want the bank to be removed. The catch to this last is that the roots do the holding, and they last for years before they rot away, so you have to anticipate, and not let trees get big where you don’t want them. You have to watch the stream banks and cut trees when necessary. It’s an art, not a science. Due to the present environmental-political understanding, it’s best not to cut a lot at a time, especially big, conspicuous trees. The environmental-political group don’t care if the stream changes course and ruins you bottom!

Movement of water below ground

2008-12-20T15:53:00.001-08:00

Every watercourse carries both water and sediment.

Most people understand the flow of water underground poorly. The common idea is that water flows in “streams.” When you dig shallow ditches you do observe water flow (if the weather has been sufficiently wet) through crab holes and the like. This is not the major mechanism of movement of water under ground, however.

Imagine a bank of sand along a stream. Water can flow through it moving in the pores between sand grains. These are tiny holes left because the sand grains are irregular in shape. If each was shaped like a brick or a child’s toy block, all the space could be filled in and very little flow permitted. The irregular shapes between sand grains do not completely fill the space, so water is permitted to flow. This is the way water flows down into soil and in some kinds of rock.

Most of the underground water in Central West Virginia (and elsewhere) resides in sandstone (as does the oil and gas). Geologists can measure the porosity of rocks which gives some indication of the space available and the speed liquids can flow through them. Soil is also porous, although not as much as some sandstone. Some rocks are not porous, such as coal and soapstone.

When it rains, water that doesn’t run off seeps down into the soil through pores, some spaces between soil particles, some through earthworm holes, some through spaces caused by plants. It sinks down to some impervious layer, perhaps clay, and there moves laterally (sidewise) through the soil. The process is slow, but it operates through the entire surface. In some places water accumulates due to presence of clay in the soil, and must be drained. Drains must be buried at about 2% grade with no low spots to drain properly. If the work to place drains is not carefully done, the sediment carried by water in drains accumulates in low spots and blocks the drains. Proper design allows for high water in the stream where the outlet is located. The outlet should be far enough above stream level so that there is plenty of time the stream is below the bottom of the outlet. Otherwise the sediment accumulates in the drain. The outlet should be a foot or so above stream level at normal flow. More is better. Anticipate changes in stream level as a result of the processes described in the article “Movement of water above ground.”

An aquifer is a strata of rock which has enough porosity to hold water and allow it to flow into a well bore rapidly enough to be useful. Most aquifers in Central West Virginia are sandstones. To the East there are limestone strata that have enough cracks to allow water to flow in useful amounts.

Water can be pumped readily from the borehole. But the volume of water in the borehole will allow pumping only a brief time. If more than a few gallon is needed, water must be resupplied from the porous rock aquifer. The combination of thickness of the aquifer and porosity determines how rapidly the well will be supplied.

The well may be drilled through a succession of porous and non-porous strata (layers), each aquifer contributing to the production of the well. Aquifers are sometimes held up by some impervious strata, like coal. These are said to be said to be “perched” on the impervious strata. Rarely, drilling through the impervious layer allows the aquifer to drain into an empty porous layer, draining the aquifer.

Some aquifers lie between impervious strata and are replenished from rain percolating down from the soil at some distance from the well at a higher elevation. Drilling into these produces an artesian well. Generally speaking, a well must be in an aquifer thick enough and porous enough to contain a supply of water that will allow the pump to run for several minutes, preferably longer. Often there are several aquifers in an area, in which case the driller should not stop at the first one. The moral of the story is not to stop drilling at the first trickle of water to save yourself money. In some areas, like ours on Jesse Run, go too deep and you get salt water, however. If you have a gas storage field in your area you can expect some of the gas to work its way up through pores toward the surface, away from the pressurized layers to flavor the water. In one of the wells on our farm, gas accumulates above the water, is ignited occasionally by a spark that blows the aluminum well cap off. We know this is the reason, because of the black carbon deposit where the gas-rich mixture explodes.

Aquifers may be thought of as having a lens shape. Not round looking down from above (if you could see through the earth) like a glass lens, nor with a smooth top and bottom, but pinching off in thickness from top to bottom as you move away from the thickest part. When you drill the water well, there is no way to tell where the lens shape of the aquifer is, or how thick it is, in order to best locate the well. The oil and gas people have a way to do this (they only kinda know) looking for their much more valuable target, but such methods are too expensive for water wells. Details of what they do need not concern us here.

The position of the “lens” is unknown and it's shape It can not be found by technology in drilling for small water wells. It bares no relation to surface features with one exception. Very shallow wells may be resupplied by steams in the vicinity. Even when the surface is dry, water continues to follow the unconsolidated material (soil and small gravel) below the surface along streams. If you are a farmer looking to drill a well for a dry time, or a homeowner who doesn’t want to run out of water ever, drilling a well on a hill is a poor choice. The strata tend to drain out in a dry time through the side of the hill into the valley. If you have to drill on a hill, go deep enough to get your water supply below steam level, a few tens of feet.

When you draw water out of the well, the first thing that happens is the water in the bore hole drops. This allows more water from the area of pores around the well to flow toward the hole, refilling it. Then water from further out flows in the newly empty pores, and further out pores resupply those pores. Think about this: When you pump water out of a barrel the water level of the whole barrel goes down, because there is no resistance to the flow of the water. When you pump water out of a hole in a porous strata there is resistance, and so slow flow. The further away from the well the more resistance to flow. Instead of the surface coming down uniformly, like in the barrel, the water nearest the well in the strata comes down most, and further away less. This forms a “cone of depression” in the surface of the water around the well, in the aquifer. If the well is resupplied from above, it is not a good idea to have a shallow well near your septic system, although many people get away with it. The problem is not so much bacteria, but chemicals with molecules nearly as small as water molecules from detergents, cleaners, medicines, etc. that go down the drain. If the water is deep, there is less likelihood of surface water contaminating the resupply.

“Water witching” is an activity that goes back to the time of witches. Although many people “believe” in it, no one has ever been able to prove objectively, that it has any better likelihood of success than pure chance. Drill your well where it is convenient. You are just as likely to hit a lens big enough to meet your needs for a farm or home if you go down until your well is sufficiently deep.

Springs in Central West Virginia (and elsewhere) are most frequently found in the side of a hill or not far from a hill or raised area. They are simply an outlet from an aquifer that can drain, in other words, is above the stream in the valley, and not contained by low porosity rock.. Occasionally they are the result of an artesian aquifer, but not often. If you drill a well in the aquifer above a spring it is likely to reduce the water in the spring.

Fracturing a gas or oil well or blasting by a strip mine or construction job can destroy a well or spring, by making a fracture that lets the aquifer drain below the level of the spring or bottom of the well. If gas or oil well or blasting by a strip mine happens in your neighborhood, it is a good idea to have the production of your well or spring verified in such a way that it can be used in court. In fact it is the law for strip mines to do this. But do it before the work takes place. Afterwards is too late. Consult your friendly lawyer. The company can be expected to fight your claim tooth and nail.

A Little Science in Making Hay

2008-11-27T14:46:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows you make hay when the sun shines. The reason depends on two scientific concepts you would learn in a good high school Physics course.

In making hay we dry the grass to a point where decomposition cannot occur, where the fungi and bacteria that cause decay can not multiply. In contrast, when making silage we prevent access to air, and need some moisture. This allows microorganisms to grow, producing alcohols and some organic acids which prevent further decay. It is well known that silage is very palatable to cattle, apparently the oxidation products first formed taste good to them. Humans also like some “partially spoiled” (really partially oxidized) foods: pickles, cheeses, alcoholic products, vinegar, yogurt, to name a few.

Likely there is some microbial action in most hay, you shouldn’t think of it as being 0% moisture. The objective is to keep the moisture content low enough so that it doesn’t progress to a stage where it is unpalatable to the animals. Frequently you can smell the action in hay after it is put up, for a week or two, but the hay is still quite acceptable to the animals.

Ideally, hay is put up as quickly as possible. You seek to avoid bleaching, which causes loss of the green color, an indicator of vitamin quality, so you want it to dry quickly. You also try to avoid getting it wet, because this will remove soluble compounds, among the most important being pentosans, five carbon sugars, which give it the characteristic odor of new mown (curing) hay. The sugars in a mammal’s body are almost entirely six carbon sugars, the most important of which is glucose, sometimes known as “blood sugar,” The cow’s metabolism changes five carbon sugars to six carbon sugars.

Ruminants (cattle, sheep, etc.) have a rich microbial flora in their rumen, a special stomach, which only ruminant animals have. The microbes are capable of digesting plant materials and converting them to compounds which the ruminant can readily absorb, and either use directly in its body or convert to compounds it can use. One kind of these is certain fatty acids which are absorbed directly from the rumen into the blood stream. Cattle can live on the fiber of grass alone, or on pure cellulose, if needed minerals and urea are also available. Cellulose is converted to glucose by the microorganisms.

There was a famous experiment several years ago in Sweden where a cow was fed shredded newspaper (almost pure cellulose), urea, the necessary minerals and water. She was able to survive and reproduce on that diet. But that was a well financed experiment, not something that is economically feasible. Well put up hay will contain protein, minerals and vitamins in addition to cellulose and the sugars which go a long way to make the hay palatable.

If hay is to be dried quickly it helps to have a warm day. Water evaporates more rapidly at higher temperatures. The vapor builds up near the source from which it evaporated, so a little wind helps by replacing the more nearly saturated air around the drying grass with lower moisture air. Turbulence carries it up away from the ground level.

The “dryer” the air, the more rapidly the water in the grass is removed. This brings us up to the first physics principle, relative humidity. A given volume of air is capable of containing only a certain mass (or weight) of water. If it contains all it can hold it is said to be saturated. If it has only half of what it can hold it is at 50% relative humidity. At 65% relative humidity air contains 65% as much water as it can hold. The lower the relative humidity, the more rapidly grass will dry. Hay makers in the West have an advantage over us in West Virginia, because of the dry air there!

Relative humidity varies widely from 100% to very low values. Water evaporates into the air over water and over vegetated land areas. The capacity of air to hold water is higher the greater the temperature. When air is cooled enough by contact with another, cooler, air mass it rains, because it is not able to hold all the moisture. If it cools just below its maximum capacity in any place, dew forms, if more cooling occurs, fog or clouds are formed.

Today I started to make hay when the relative humidity was 95%, but two things helped me, as the day wore on: the relative humidity dropped because it warmed up. The second thing was that it was a bright, clear day. The sun’s energy is about 446 watts per square meter (think square yard) at the top of the atmosphere. This is a little less than a 500 watt lamp. A lot of this gets through in summer, so the sold layer it hits first (the hay) is warmed considerably. This helps remove the water from the grass, into the air. The wind blows the water moisture away, and mixes it in the atmosphere. Presto! Dry hay! Tons of water gone from the hay field.

Now there is another principle we need to discuss here. It is the Latent Heat of Vaporization of water. You may recall that heat is measured in calories, and that one calorie is the amount of heat required to raise one gram of water one degree centigrade. In more modern courses this amount of heat is given as 4.184 joules, the measure of energy. (Heat is a form of energy.) In the physics class, it is explained that the heat energy is used (in large part) to increase the vibrational motion of the water molecules.

Now what is Latent Heat of Vaporization? It is the amount of heat required to break the molecules of water apart. It is 5.4 times the heat required to elevate the temperature of liquid water from freezing to boiling, some 2260 joules/gram. Latent Heat of Vaporization changes water from liquid to water vapor without increasing the temperature. This energy breaks the attractive forces between the molecules, and lets them evaporate to become a gas or vapor at the same temperature as the liquid water in the hay. A vast amount of energy from sunlight is used to dry hay. If it was not absorbed by vegetation through evaporating water the temperature would rise rapidly. If little sunlight is present hay will dry, but much slower, drawing the necessary energy from the surroundings, mostly by cooling the air.

The sun warms the hay at the surface of the ground, but the energy that goes to evaporating water cools the hay. You might say the two processes compete to change the temperature of the hay. When the hay begins to get dry, its temperature will rise, because water is not evaporating as rapidly, so the sun gets an edge.

As long as you keep water away from the dry hay, it will not decay further. Your cow will have a great assortment of compounds that were in the grass to flavor her dinner, and many compounds formed by the partial decay of the grass by the water you could not take out. She is a great gourmet and each day will savor the slight differences in hay from different parts of the field, including the effects of fertilizer on each part, different dryness conditions when it was put up, how broken the stems were, how many leaves were knocked off, weeds present, and a host of other factors. Put out two bales, one from a limed and fertilized field and one from a field without, both properly cured. See which disappears first.

The sensory world of cattle

2008-11-27T14:24:00.001-08:00

Cattle have little color sensitivity , like all mammals except the primates, which is the order we humans most closely resemble. It has recently been discovered cattle have some ability to distinguish shades of blue and green. They are sensitive to light and dark in their visual field, somewhat like seeing a black and white photo with just a little color sensitivity to blue and green. They have the ability to see things all 360 degrees around themselves without turning their head, and a cow or steer which is blind in one eye can see a little in front and somewhat more behind without turning its head. They really miss seeing the blind side, and it makes them “spookey,” and hard to handle unless they follow other cattle. Cattle have no idea that you can not see behind yourself.

They have little depth perception, the ability to estimate distance by the difference in images in the two eyes, like we do. Instead they use visual clues, primarily size of recognized objects and objects passing in front of or behind other objects of known distance. Size changes as something moves closer or away in the visual image also give cattle clues to distance.

They see much better than we do when it is twilight or dark, because they have a special reflective layer in the back of their eyes, called the tapetum. This is why car lights shining on them in the dark sometimes make their eyes look like reflectors. Remember, after dark they can see a lot better than you can! If you try to handle them after it begins to get dark a flashlight blinds them, so try to get along with your own night vision.

Their eyes focus well on the grass at the end of their nose and objects over twenty five or thirty feet away, but not as well in between. But they do well enough to aim a butt or kick at a person!
Cattle are exquisitely sensitive to motion, particularly quick changes. They can see you move through gaps in board fences, and if they are inside a roofed area and you are against the light it may excite them. Young ones especially seem not to notice the fence keeps you out, as well as them in.

Bovines are actually quite uncoordinated, compared to a person. They may get their head caught between two trees and never think to move their head up to get out. They can’t place their feet to step on high places or rocks, or to avoid them, especially the back feet. Some animals do well at this, but not cattle. In a cattle chute they kick and flail around without much idea of where their feet are going. You have to protect them from places where feet and lower legs might be caught or injured. They get caught in wire from fences and flail without an effective plan to get out, just instinct.

Cattle have keen hearing, you will usually not be able to sneak up on them, even if you are out of sight, because they hear so well. They are responsive to loud noises both up close and far away, and to very slight noises when the sound is unusual. Their sense of smell is excellent, far better than yours, and their sense of taste can be presumed to be excellent, at least in the area of food materials, since they depend on picking out the best food in the pasture, day by day, bite by bite, for their welfare. Observation shows they can doubtless taste the effects of the lime and fertilizer you use, also the effect of manure and urine dropped on the pasture in the last several months, avoiding it at first and later relishing the effect it has on the grass. This delay no doubt helps avoid parasitic worm larva until the larva die.

They prefer to eat leaf tips of grass, in contrast to the lower parts left after the first bite. At least part of the reason strip grazing works is that hungry animals eat the whole plant, rather than moving on to another especially succulent bite on the top of another tuft of grass, stepping on several plants between.
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Cattle are more active physically and sexually at dawn and dusk. They like to rest in the middle of the day, and sleep about 4 hours at night, in a series of naps. It’s best not to disturb them after they have gotten settled for the night, though. They get excited and are difficult to control if you do.

Cattle are most comfortable at 30 to 50 degrees. They have difficulty getting rid of heat when it is hot, since they do not sweat. They loose heat through breathing, like dogs do, but are not able to pant effectively. A person in good physical condition used to sweating can stand physical activity above 80 or 85 much better than cattle can. One athletic man or a small group of men in good shape can just about run a bunch of cows to death at high temperature.

Tests in California showed that keeping dairy cows heads air conditioned was quite effective in reducing body temperature. Cattle need shade in hot weather, as well as plenty of water to evaporate as they breathe, as evaporation is the basis of getting rid of heat generated by metabolism.

Mother cows do not recognize their new calf by sight, but rather by smell. This knowledge is important if you want to give a cow a calf other than her own (because her calf has died, for example). Some will take the calf, and some won’t. Getting the smell of the cow’s own calf on the new calf helps. Confine them together until the cow allows the calf to nurse. A time or two feeding will usually “bond” them.

The Group Behavior of cattle

A cow keeps track of her new calf by “keeping an eye on it” for several days. If this connection is broken not long after the calf is born (moving the herd to another field, or to the barn) the cow will have a much harder time getting connected with the right calf. If the calf is wild it will run away from its dam. The cow remembers where she was separated from the calf, and will try to go back to that spot. The several days old calf will try to return to the spot where they were separated too, but not a very young calf. Heifers especially will abandon a calf if they are separated from it. You don’t want to separate them, even for a short time right after the calf is born. Eventually the pair seems able to identify the each other visually, perhaps by the way each acts as much as shape. Perhaps also by voice when they call.

Cattle watch each other. The herd generally spreads all over the area available to them in a field. They are in contact by their calls and by watching movement of other animals. They sometimes call others to something that can be eaten, but more often they do not, as though they want to enjoy it by themselves as long as possible. Soon other cows, even out of sight, notice that part of the field is vacant, or other cows are drifting away in a certain direction, and follow them. If cows are huddled together something is wrong, perhaps a predator is in the field. This may be called the drift principle – when they see another animal moving, they tend to move the same way.

The bull is attracted to a cow in heat (ready to breed) by smell. The cow produces a chemical called a pheromone, which the bull smells, not with his regular smelling organ, but with a special smell organ called the vomeronasal organ. He will wrinkle his nose in a characteristic way when using this organ. He may insert his nose in the cows urine as she urinates when she is in heat. The pheromone - vomeronasal organ combination is quite powerful, and a cow in heat may be detected a mile or more away if the wind is right. The bull advertises his presence by a particular “trumpeting” sound, which is easy for the cow (and you) to recognize, a sound which carries great distances.

You can learn several of the characteristic sounds cattle make. In addition to the trumpeting call just mentioned, some of the most familiar are: 1. A cow calling her calf, which changes with her degree of distress. 2. A calf calling its mother. They sometimes appear to be too lazy to walk to each other at meal time (especially when the calf gets older, they seem to call one to the other “Come to me!). 3. A calf that is frightened and calls for help. The cows will come from all directions when they hear this distress call, look out for yourself. 4. A call that is effectively “Report in, I want to know where you out of sight bovines are.” 5. The characteristic sounds cows and bulls make when they warn you not to come too close (this is in the field, they don’t do it as much when confined, they use “body language” in a pen). 6. Infrequently, a sound indicating pain. They seldom make a sound at normal birth. 7. The challenge of one bull to another.

Cattle remember where they have gone. They find their way back by retracing their path. They remember places, but can not be hurried too much. Their analytical ability for the “floor plan” of the area around them is terrible. You observe they can not find their way to feed instantly if they have to walk around a fence to a gate even a short distance away. Sometimes it seems they are just being obstinate, but I am convinced they do not understand these situations. In nature there are few barriers of this sort. They eventually find their way by milling about in a random way, and following the animal which is moving. This is much more effective when they are not under stress. They will also follow you if they think it will lead to food. This is often more effective than to try to drive them.

The desire to be with other animals is very strong. This herd instinct makes it much easier to move them. In contrast, pigs scatter and are almost impossible to drive. If a bovine animal doesn’t stay with the herd, it may be sick or injured, or getting ready to have a calf. Staying away from the herd habitually often goes with an aggressive nature, including toward people.

The herd has a “pecking order,” one animal can boss all the others. This may not be very conspicuous to a casual observer, but it’s there. A second animal will be able to boss all but the top animal. A third all but the top two, and so on down to the bottom animal, which is bossed by all. Much of the pushing and fighting you observe between animals is an attempt to change this order, or to maintain it. Top animals are not threatened by lower animals, so they will not fight unless the lower animal becomes “uppity.” You may not know the order, but the animals do. It’s particularly conspicuous when you have several bulls together. Be careful about trying to separate bulls for their own protection. They are quite serious and very likely to challenge you under these circumstances.

Avoidance circle and handling animals

Every bovine animal has an area around itself, roughly circular in shape, which makes the animal uncomfortable if you enter. The term for this is the avoidance circle. The animal will try to move away from someone who intrudes into this area regardless of whether it is a man, dog or predator.

This circle is not always the same size. The more excited the animal, the larger the circle. The further the intrusion into the circle, the greater the effort by the animal to get away. So the closer you get to the animal, the less control you have over its direction. In other words, if you want maximum control to encourage the animal or group of animals to move in a certain direction, approach from the opposite direction, moving slowly, speaking in a quiet voice, or waving your arm. Get it to move before it is frightened. In the field, it is quite foolish to frighten the animals and encourage them to run. Obviously, cattle can run much faster than you can.

If an individual or group of bovines is going the way you want, follow quietly at a speed that will not alarm it. Yell only when it is doing the wrong thing, such as turning the wrong way. If it is running into a fence you can yell even from the side or somewhat behind to call attention the fence. Although cattle can run faster than you, thier comfortable walk may be somewhat slower than a vigorous walk by a man or boy.

When threatened, a group of animals move closer together. They become excited as a group, with some animals more excited than others. At low levels of excitement an older animal, a dominant cow, will move out first. This is your best option for moving the herd, because the old cow will not run and she is the natural leader. If she is familiar with the field, having made the trip several times before, she will know the way you want her to go. And she will please you or displease you as she sees fit, but she will be relatively easy to handle. If the group becomes more excited, the leader will be a young cow or heifer, or worse yet, a large calf. The younger the animal the more likely it is to try to break away from the herd, and this usually leads the whole herd the wrong way.

The people herding cattle form a line behind the animals and keep in line, close enough together to prevent an animal from trying to run between them. If you look down from above the herders should be like beads on a string, but somewhat separated. No one should be much ahead or behind this line, which may move more at one end than the other, stretching out into corners, dividing to go around obstructions like steep valleys and ponds. Cattle will let you come only so close before moving, and they have greater impulse to move if you crowd close to them. Animals that are not used to seeing several people in the field are much more likely to get excited.

The shape of the area where you want to move them, and the features of the field, such as slopes and valleys are very important. Gates should not be in the middle of the side of a field where you must drive animals. If they are, you have to have one group drive the animals to the gate, and another to prevent them from going past the gate. A better location for a gate is near the corner. The best arrangement to drive them into the handling pen is to start into a V broad at the end away from the chute, narrowing down to the handling pens. The fence may be made stronger as you approach the handling pens.

We had a lot of trouble in one of our fields with the cattle running up hill and circling around the field when we wanted them to go into a corner. We set up a temporary fence using polywire and fiberglass posts to funnel them into the corner, and it worked quite well.

Cattle weigh as much as a man, even at a few months of age. A strong man can manhandle them unless they are very aggressive up to about 300 pounds. Beyond that your strength is no match for theirs and they have four wheel drive. They are not likely to gang up on you, with several attacking at once, that has been breed out of them, but one may. Over 300 pounds you have nothing but psychology of one sort or another to handle them. You can inflict pain, you can frighten them even more, but your options are limited. Well thought out and built handling facilities are the best assistance to handling them. It is necessary to perform some operations that hurt the animal, at least as much as having an ear pierced or getting a shot, so they must be forced. They learn what is coming. Very simple facilities can be used for a small number of animals, or portable chutes used by a group of cattle owners.

Individual cattle vary considerably in their temperament. Temperament is hereditary, and can constitute a very serious problem. The attempts to quantify it have not been very successful, but it is a trait easily recognized by persons handling cattle. The attempts to quantify it have involved “time out of chute” (how quick they leave the chute) measurements and subjective judgments, known as “agitation scores,” but none has proved satisfactory for general use.

Wild cattle are “loosers.” Trials have shown they take a month or more to adjust when weaning, loosing weight when they should be gaining. They drift a lot when shipped, they have a disproportionate number of “dark cutters,” and they pass these traits on to their offspring. The Limousine breed established an EPD (expected progeny difference) for “docility” in the 1990’s, because it had such serious problems previously. The only way to handle these wild cattle is to ship them, as soon as possible, preferably as calves. They can seriously injure or kill someone and no animal is worth that.

As published in the WEST VIRGINIA CATTLEMAN

The value of land

2008-08-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

There are many things to consider when you think abut the value of land. The most direct value is the sale price, but unfortunately you must sell it to test the value that way. And you may not get as much as you can, even then. I will discuss sale and sale forced by government, which is called condemnation, at the end of this article. Selling is the final benefit of ownership.

The second value of land is its value in producing income. This is ascertained by its rental value and using a multiplier. Even what multiplier to use is subjective. Bankers have a formula that gives the value of a series of deposits or payments, but this is usually for a specified period of time.

Land may be more value to you in producing income than renting. However, if you must have the knowledge and the wealth to put improvements, such as fences, barns, signs, a house, machinery and livestock with it to develop it for a farm. Or you may choose to do other kinds of development. You must also have a lot of initiative and time to do any development, though. Most people lack one or the other.

Timber is another way raw land can produce income. However, it requires some management, too.

A third value of land is as a home. Most people in this day who own a tract have a house on it. Your most important need is for food for your family. When that is met, your family needs a place to relax, sleep and be comfortable. When you use a tract as a home, you become attached to it beyond its value as property. Other people identify you with it, and judge you to some extent by its value and how you keep it. If you own a tract that is home, it will likely be yours for years and it gains a value to you that is beyond what it would have to someone who might buy it.

Speculation on the increase in value of land is another common use. In my lifetime this has been a one-way street, always increasing in dollars, but that is not the case over some time intervals, and may not be true in your lifetime. Another very important factor to be considered is the decrease in value of the dollar. Inflation makes land seem more valuable because the price is denominated in dollars. You want to make time comparisons of price in real money, taking into account depreciation of the dollar through inflation. This is may be done by finding the price at the beginning of the time using the CPI, the Consumer Price Index, published by the United States Government Bureau of Labor. Subtract this from the price at the end of the time period. The difference is the gain in “real money.” The dollar has fallen to one third its value in the last 25 years or so. (This is written in 2005). (See note below.) Short term speculation is safer, and the longer the term, the greater the risk both of greater gain and of loss. If you have other uses for the land you buy, you just have to ride the waves of change in prices. Speculation is probably not justified unless you have special knowledge the land you invest in will change use in a few years or less. Of course you can make a change of use that will increase the value.

Land may also have mineral production value. Under the laws of West Virginia this can be severed, that is, ownership of one or more minerals and the right to produce them its separated from the remainder. This residue is often referred to as the surface, and it is the part that is of most interest to the small owner. The surface estate is less valuable as a result of loosing the right to produce the minerals because it will entail a right of way and drilling sites for the oil and gas producer. At one time, when gas was abundant, the producer granted free gas which went to a house on the farm, but this is being lost as succeeding generations come between the surface owner and the mineral owner.

Water leaving the farm can be expected to be valuable in a few years as more of the earth’s surface is polluted, especially where the water on the land comes from a spring or well. Coal is slow now, but will have value other than for fuel far in the future. It is great starting material for organic chemicals. Other minerals are valuable in some places, and may be expected to provide value where they are discovered.

The development rights, that is, the right to build housing or commercial buildings, can be sold and the farming rights retained. The idea of this is to preserve the land as farmland. The purchaser would be a local government agency or some nonprofit group dedicated to farmland preservation. Check this option out carefully if you decide to take it. It is a one-way street, just as is the sale of mineral rights, but it has its advantages for some families.

Land has recreational value for the family and has potential to attract other people. Hunting, mushrooms and other wild plant gathering, firewood from non-timber trees (selling firewood is not practical since it involves so much time and labor), poles for construction, camping (a very large topic, study it carefully before starting it) and other possibilities are available.

Land can be used to secure a loan, but try to avoid using it that way. The value of the land may be much more than the loan it is used to secure, so be careful. Default on the loan and you loose control of what happens to the land.

Land can be used to set up your own non-farm business, if you have a satisfactory location. This may be related to agriculture or not. Having the land is a significant start. The farm can be a source of materials such as rock, timber and dirt for a business. It can be a site for a business that must be hidden from public view, such as a junkyard or that must be located away from the public for safety. A spot on our farm was once considered for an explosives storage facility.

Market price and condemnation

Of all the ways to value land, the most important to understand is market price. This is the legal basis for value, and is defined as the price paid by a willing buyer to a willing seller. It is determined by a host of factors for a particular piece of land.

The expected use for the land is one. Forest, farming, housing, commercial development for such uses as highway, factories, stores and so on are some possibilities. In this list, if land is suitable for the use later in the list, it would be expected to sell for more than land restricted to an earlier use. This use is referred to as the highest and best use of the land. Location is another factor. If the land is accessible to town or to a major highway, it is more valuable. Obviously the market price is ascertained by selling. How is it established in absence of sale, or in case of a forced sale?

There is an appraisal industry devoted to ascertaining the market value of pieces of land and developments. It is not the same as the real estate industry, which is devoted to locating buyers for property sellers. Real estate often involves a salesmanship factor theoretically not recognized in appraisal. The appraiser chooses three or more similar properties that have sold recently in the same area called comparables and arrives at a fair market value based on the characteristics of the tract he is estimating and the characteristics of the comparables.

The testimony of a professional appraiser is required for condemnation of land for public use and many other legal uses. Note, however, that current use is the basis of condemnation, not the intended future use. If you find yourself in a situation where an appraiser is needed, it would pay you to see a few samples of an appraiser’s work to see how it is done. A word of caution, however. The in-house appraiser, the appraiser who is employed repeatedly by a utility, such as the gas company, or by a government agency, such as the Corps of Engineers, habitually shaves the estimate for his/her employer. (They know which side of their bread is buttered.)

If you face condemnation you might be justified in hiring your own appraiser to put up against the condemning agency. I did a study of condemnation at the Burnsville Dam (a Corps of Engineers taking) and almost everyone who fought the Corps got more for their property if they took it to court. Consider the cost to yourself, though. It is a gamble to not accept the agency offer, but a well advised decision might pay off. It depends on the jury and luck.

If you own land, you are a professional land manager, whether you like it or not.

Note: As this is published in 2008 the dollar is going down like a rock. The CPI calculation has been changed several times in recent years. According to Liz Saunders of Charles Schwab & company, writing in June of 2008, "Over the past 30 years, major changes have been made to the calculation of the CPI due to "re-selection and reclassification of areas, items and outlets, [and] to the development of new systems for data collection and processing," according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you eliminate those adjustments and calculate CPI as it would have been calculated in 1980, it would be nearly 12 percent today.” So a simple calculation using the CPI is not really accurate, after all. This further proves my point: value of land is a very subjective matter.