The new thing on Kansas farms in March of 1952 was the widespread use of liquefied petroleum gas in homes, farmsteads and fields. Kansas Farmer magazine did a 10-page spread in the March 15 edition detailing the benefits of "blue flame magic," including cooking stoves, home heating, plentiful hot water, refrigeration, air conditioning and laundry.

In the fields, LP gas was being used for tractor fuel and to power irrigation pumps. It was also used to power generators, feed mills and elevators, to heat the water in stock tanks and to dry grain.

60 years ago
Conservation was a big topic in 1957, and planting windbreaks was a big part of that.

The recommendation for desirable plants, however, reveals some of the misguided information that has been given out to farmers attempting to do the right thing through the years.

In a cover photo in the March 2, 1957, Kansas Farmer magazine, multiflora rose was pictured as a good plant to use in windbreaks in some areas because it did well when planted during favorable conditions.

It "did well" all right. So well that today the multiflora rose is among the once-desirable plants to be listed as a noxious weed in many counties.

50 years ago
Sen. Frank Carlson, speaking before the Kansas Republican Women in Topeka, recommended an International Extension Service, dedicated to the elimination of hunger around the world.

Carlson emphasized that he wasn't talking about young people volunteering a year or two of their time, but rather a group of experts with solid knowledge and experience who would be hired to develop agricultural techniques in parts of the world where people were dying of starvation.

30 years ago
Crawford County dairyman William M. Beezley was honored as the Kansas Distinguished Dairyman of 1986 in March of 1987.

The Beezley family farm had 1,650 acres with about 400 head of Holsteins. Their Dairy Herd Improvement Association herd average was more than 18,000 pounds of milk production per cow and above 600 pounds of fat production per cow on 150 head of cows milking.

20 years ago
J.Q. Lynd, professor of soil microbiology at Oklahoma State University, was among the first to suggest that health of the soil, including the living organisms of the subsoil, might play a large role in how well crops were able to deal with stresses like drought.

Goerzen writes from Wichita.