80 years ago this week. A monument to the Poland China hog breed will be erected on the W.C. Hankinson farm in Butler County, Ohio. The site was picked because it is home to the log cabin where the pedigree for a Poland-China hog was written in 1877 by Carl Frigau. The breed originated about 1850, the cross of the Byfield, Russia, Warren County, Berkshire, Irish Glazier and other hog breeds. The breed has nothing to do with the country, Poland, but instead derives its name from a farmer who immigrated from Poland to a farm near West Chester, and to whom many of the new breed’s ancestors belonged.
When H.H. Root of Medina travels to Akron in his “aeroplane” next week, he will carry about 40,000 passengers – bees. He will exhibit them at the four high schools in Akron and show them making honey and beeswax.
50 years ago this week. Summit Conservation District supervisors are in the tree planting business, thanks to Raymond Firestone, vice president of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. Firestone donated a Lowther tree planter to the district to help speed tree planting in the district, which has several thousand acres of idle land that should revert to the production of trees. The problem in the past has been the inability of obtain reasonable labor for planting, and the new planter will reduce the labor and time required. The board of supervisors has set a use and repair fee of $5 per thousand for trees or multiflora rose. Douglas Guin of Richfield was able to plant 2,000 trees in 75 minutes, and Van Carter of Tallmadge was able to plant over 10,000 roses in 8 hours with the help of the machine.
25 years ago this week. The 127 bulls selling at auction from the Ohio Bull Test Station brought an average of $908 for their owners. The sale was a the conclusion of a 140-day testing period at the new bull test facility at Belle Valley. All bulls selling had to meet rigid standards for average daily gain, soundness, and weight per day of age. The best-doing bull was a Simmental from Linden Farm, Lagrangeville, N.Y. He gained 4.61 pounds per day on test and had a lifetime 365-day adjusted weight of 1464 pounds. Breeds selling included 45 Angus averaging $888; one Red Angus, $425; two Red Poll, $550; two Chianina, $825; 24 Charolais, $886; five Hereford, $435; 28 Simmental, $1179; one Ankina, $1800; two Beefalo, $500 and two Maine-Anjou, $563.
Recent hikes in the price of steel, coupled with higher car industry costs, make it likely the cost of 1978 model autos will go up at least $300, according to automotive analysts. U.S. Steel Corp. said it was raising sheet, strip, bar and road and plant steel prices by 6 percent, with the full product line going up an average 3.5 percent.
