The Rural Voice, 1981-01, Page 11new corn "package" to ag. reps, farm
organizations and anyone else who would
listen. Looking back, George Jones says
there were lots of nights when he
wouldn't be home til 2 a.m. and would
be back in the classroom at 8 the next
morning.
AN OUTSTANDING TEACHER
While research always attracted Jones,
Tanner say the man was also "an
outstanding teacher." He challenged
students to discuss his pronouncements -
"those boys loved to battle you," Jones
recalls. He encouraged his students to
call him George. rather than professor.
and encouraged them to think. One of the
students who stands out in his memory is
a farmer he now meets at agricultural
conferences - Murray Selves of the
Fullarton area. Even as a student, Jones
said, Selves was obsessed with the
integrated farming system. Some of
Jones' other students, like Jack Tanner
and Terry Daynard for example, are now
crop science professors themselves.
In 1971, Jone left the university
because "I really needed another
challenge." The challenge was going into
researc't • -Oh Stewart Seeds Ltd. in Ailsa
Craig.
When John Stewart lured Jones away
from the university to direct the plant
breeding program at Stewart Seeds Ltd. •
in Ailsa Crag Stewart said he was
always being asked "How in the world
did you get George Jones to leave OAC?'
But Stewart believes Jones was ready to
make a change since the researcher has
"both private enterprise and farmer
blood in his '. 1:16."
Stewart sato Jones had already
promoted his programs to farmers around
the province. "He was the best in the
entire province and the best in ti.e
business in promoting corn and soybeans
and chemical weed control, ' 'Stewart
believes. But the seed company owner
thinks Jones also had a real desire to •
"be the best in ptivate business." So
George Jones traded the well-equipped
research facilities at oAC for the
improvised, under -equipped facilities at
the new Stewart labs, and adjusted
remarkably to the change, Stewart said.
Stewart, who formed a "very firm and
lasting friendship" with Jones in the
years they worked together, added,
"Perhaps only once in a lifetime is a
person privileged to have a man of
George Jones calibre and humanity join
with him in a new venture to develop a
research project which might take five or
six years or longer before that project
starts returning money on investment,
but also neither is one privileged to be
part of a program where both parties
always put the good of the program first.
George Jones always put the good of
agriculture, the well-being of the farmer,
ahead of himself, his hours of work or
seemingly untiring efforts."
John Stewart said when Jones joined
the firm in 1971, the company had been
involved in the cereals, but not in plant
breeding . As director of research, Jones
expanded into other crops - and the two
crops both Stewart and Jones believed
had tremendous potential right across
Canada were soybeans and barley.
"Intellectually, he was always
challenging you. New ideas fairly rolled
from him - his fun and humour was
always present and I considered it a real
privilege to work with him (Jones)," said
Stewart, now an agricultural consultant
who spends half the year on his Ailsa
Craig iarrn and half the year in Florida.
George Jones says today. "I had done
my best teaching when 1 was heavily
involved in the learning phase." Also,
the university changed in the 20 years he
was there - it became a full-fledged
university, rather than a basically
agricultural college, and he found the
students, more affluent now, were
different than when he started his career.
Looking back at his obsession, "when I
became a wild-eyed evangelist," Jones
says the reasons for the corn explosion
were Ontario's good land base, the new
chemistry and the nutrition in feeding
livestock . His trick in
spreading the corn gospel, Jones says,
"was to know the answers." Farmers
wanted facts - facts to prove the switch to
corn would benefit them financially.
One of his former professors at the
college, Oswald McConkey, worried that
Jones' enthusiasm for corn would prove
harmful. Jones said his reacher used to
tell him, "you exist tor the moment."
McConkey, on the other hand, would tell
his students in working the land, "you
must plan for your children, you must
plan for your children's children, you
must plan for a thousand years." The
grasslands specialist was concerned
farmers would destroy their soils if they
jumped wholeheartedly on the corn
bandwagon.
Today, some people do blame George
Jones for the monoculture agriculture -
growing one crop continuously on the
same land. While the researcher admits
he said monoculture corn was a distinct
possibility under certain circumstances,
' r said by far the safest way was
rotational farming." Without rotation,
the farmer faces soil erosion, drainage
problems and a host of other problems.
Farmers went the monoculture route,
Jones believes. for economic reasons -
corn is a mechanized crop, and if a farmer
wants to justify those expenses, he has to
grow several acres of corn.
Today, with nitrogen prices and other
energy costs rising, "it may be that
monoculture is no longer an economic
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THE RURAL VOICE/JANUARY 1981 PG. 11