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The Rural Voice, 1989-01, Page 6USED BUILDING MATERIALS • Wood & steel beams • Steel pipe • Windows & doors • Boilers & furnaces • Electric transformers • Fluorescent lights Large Quantity USED STEEL 6 x 6" H -Beam 14 -ft. long Open web steel joists 20 ft. long 12' I -Beam 20' & 24' long Lumber: 2 x 4's up to 9 ft., 50¢ ea. 2 x 4's up to 14 ft. long, $1 ea. For Information and Demolition Quotes Call T -riwO.4Y Dean •�-r DURHAM ONT. LIMITED 1-800-265-3062 519-369-3203 Warehouse and Sales Yard Located 5 Km South of Durham on Hwy. 6 TIRES XTC RADIAL SNOW TIRES P235R75-15 Extra Load W.S. $100 installed & balanced i • Willits Tire Service Complete On Farm Service Lucknow 519-528-2103 4 THE RURAL VOICE SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION One of the fascinating things about the newspaper business is that now and then you meet someone who can stand old ideas on their heads and make you see them a new way. I remember years ago watching the late Norman Alexander address a Federation of Agriculture meeting. He was trying to point out to farmers the damage they were doing to their livelihood, their soil, through careless farming practices. Norm had flown all over North America in his own plane seeking out experts on the prevention of erosion because at the time there was no one in Canada who seemed interested in the problem. The audience was not particularly receptive. Soil conservation sounded a bit too much like the stuff preached by those long-haired environmentalists — it wasn't very practical. But Norm must have got through to a few people that night. And with his talks and displays he converted a few more each year. Now, thanks in no small part to his missionary work, soil conservation is taken seriously indeed. That experience of having some- one show you something in a different light came again the other day when I heard Bernhard Hack speak at a meet- ing of the Ecological Farmers Associ- ation. Ecological farming isn't quite respectable yet in mainstream agricul- ture, just as soil conservation wasn't when first I heard Norm's pitch. Mr. Hack was pitching a radical idea. Weeds aren't the problem most farmers see them as, he said. They're part of the solution. Ecological farm- ers treat the soil as a living organism. Treat it properly, they say, and you won't need all those chemicals. Mr. Hack noted that weed seeds may be dormant for years, but sudden- ly they sprout and you've got a weed crop. Why? Because the conditions of the soil change. Take thistles and milkweed. If soil becomes compacted, the compaction can go right down to the subsoil and cause anaerobic rather than aerobic decay of vegetable matter because there isn't enough air in the soil. Anaerobic breakdown makes soil acid. Thistles and milkweed like acid soil. They sprout, sending down their long roots and breaking up the soil. Even- tually they change the soil conditions and stop growing on that ground. Mr. Hack also said that growing alfalfa for three years will rid a field of thistles and milkweed because the miles of alfalfa root will break up the soil and let the air in. Because of the density of pig man- ure, its decay also tends to be anaero- bic, Mr. Hack said, which promotes the growth of acid -loving plants like pigweed and lamb's quarters. These plants use up the ammonia from the heavy nitrogen content in the manure, ammonia which is harmful to small - seed grain plants. Ragweed, he added, grows in areas of low fertility, which is why you see it along roads and laneways and why it is a growing problem in Essex and Kent counties, where 20 years of cash - cropping are wearing the soil down. The key is observation. Weeds can tell you what is wrong with your soil, and you can plant crops that will solve the problem rather than be hurt by it. People like Mr. Hack are winning converts. Whether they'll ever win a majority of farmers or not remains to be seen. Ecological farmers have to have above-average management skills because there aren't quick -fix solutions to problems like throwing a different weed spray in the tank. But farmers owe it to themselves to listen to the arguments, to see farming from a different perspective.° Keith Roulston, a newspaper publisher and playwright who lives near Blyth, is the originator and past publisher of The Rural Voice.