The Rural Voice, 1981-01, Page 10George Jones
The Evangelist of Corn
The trouble with interviewing George
Jones, the man who's been called the
evangelist of corn, is that he's heard all
the questions before. Sitting in the
comfortable kitchen of his Riversdale
"homestead" in Bruce County, it's a
little discomfitting knowing Jones has
thought of your next question ahead of
BY ALICE GIBB
of other technological advances, Tanner
points out, adding he's not being
irreligious, that George Jones has been
nicknamed "the Christ of corn" and is
definitely "the guy who really catalysed
the corn expansion."
Today. the corn catalyst, in addition to
his research, is trying his hand at
George Jones. a convert to
monoculture monster.
arming in Bruce County. denies he created a
[Photo by Gibbj
you.
George Jones, now director of research
at Ciba-Geigy Ltd. in Ailsa Craig, is the
man who devoted much of his life to
"preaching" the advantages of corn as a
lucrative cash crop. As a former student,
Prof. Jack Tanner, head of the Crop
Sciences Department at the University of
Guelph says, "he's the boy who put
together the package (on corn)." The
package included the use of early
hybrids, new chemical weed control
techniques. earlier planting and a variety
PG. 10 THE RURAL VOICE/JANUARY 1981
something he's always dreamed of doing
- farming. He and son Doug own about
400 acres in the Riversdale area, running
a beef feedlot operation and growing -
what else - corn.
When George Jones was growing up on
his family's farm in Prince Edward
Island, he says "my only ambition was to
own a homestead."
"To me, that was it," he adds. But
buying a homestead required money,
which he didn't have, and since his
mother had been a schoolteacher, he
decided to follow her lead. Books were
always valued in the family, and although
he often sacrificed classes for farm work,
at 18 years George Jones found himself
teaching. His school was the same
one -room schoolhouse he'd attended, and
many of his 47 pupils were almost as old
as he was.
"I had visions of escaping poverty
through schooling," Jones reflects - an
idea encouraged by his family. But then
the war intervened and further schooling
was temporarily postponed.
During his stint as a navigator, Jones
came to Ontario for the first time. In
1946, he left the service, and returned to
PEI with a desolate feeling, afraid he'd
face only unemployment.
$11,000 LATER
Instead of engineering, and despite the
fact the government preferred veterans to
study nearer to home, George Jones
moved to Guelph and the Ontario
Agricultural College. In the next six years
he married his wife, Thelma, the couple
had three children, and George earned
his M.A. - all fora cost of $11,000., which
Jones says today's students would find
hard to believe.
When finances were slim, and it looked
like George would have to miss
graduation, he learned in the nick of time
he'd won the cash prize for nutrition. In
1952, his training in genetics and plant
breeding complete, George Jones was
asked to stay on as a lecturer at the
school. specializing in corn and soybeans.
As quickly as possible, Jones says, he
drifted into the area of crop production -
"how to effectively use new chemistry
that was coming on stream", chemistry
like the now notorious 2-4-D. It was in the
earl, 1950's the "miracle" happened
the development of trizines which would
form the base of many of the corn
herbicides.
In the next few years, by his own
admission, Jones became "sort of a
driven person". fascinated by the
potential of new developments on
farming. Jack Tanner says in that period
Jones would often be on the road 100
nights a year, preaching the benefits of tht
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