The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1943-03-25
Ford Talks Of Farms While He FORCES Tools Of Wa'
Every Lot Should Produce Food,
He Urges in Exclusive Interview
BY JAMES THRASHER
NEA Staff Correspondent

Nearby his great factories
forged and hammered the tools
of war. Around him ragged a
controversy about his Willow
Run bomber production that had
excited public and press and
Senate investigators. But the
famous and tabled automotive
genius preferred to speak of
gardens and tractors, food and
food shortages.
1t was practical farmers
talk, not the theorizing of a di-
lettante. For much of the farm
boy remains alive in Henry Ford
though it is nearly so years since
he set out on the road that led
him to industrial greatness. And
what seems to disturb him today
more than arguments about pro-
duction quotas is the threat of
food shortage.
IF anyone goes hungry in
this country, it will be in the
midst of plenty" Mr.. Ford said.
II could draw a circle 20 miles
around the outskirts of Detroit
and show you thousands of acres
of unused land inside it.
EACH PATCH A GARDEN
Every roadside and every
small patch of land has got to
be worked. That's why we've
been going after this tractor Of
ours. Tractors are going to be
important if we make the most
of the land"
Mr.. Ford is proud of this
tractor of ours" Even though he
spends most of his time in his
River Rouge and Willow Run
plants, taking an active advisory
part in the production of bomb
ers. tanks and jeeps, he has late
ly been finding an hour or two
in his busy days to spend with
his favorite project.
This tractor he emphasizes, is
not altogether new-"just the
basic Ford tractor with all the
bugs worked out" Nor is his
gardening program, in which
the tractor has an important
role, an innovation.
For years he has serviced
thousands of plots on Ford-own-
ed property, on which Ford en-
ployees have grown their own
vegetables. The peak year was
1887, in which Mr.. Ford's farm
group did the blowing for $1,000
garden plots. This year he hopes
to make even more land avail
able. He is going to plant every
foot of his own vast farmlands
with a greater variety of vege-
tables and cereals, and he hopes
that others will follow his ex-
ample.
EDUCATION IN FARMING
Mr.. Ford's new tractor is low
priced, sturdy, powerful and
maneuverable. He believes it
tops all others in these require
ments.
ANY schoolboy of IL could
operate it after three hours in
struction," Mr.. Ford said. And
the kids should tackle this prob
lem of farming that everyone is
talking about. Farming is the
greatest education they can get.
Here at Ford we have always
advocated combining farm and
shop training with textbook
teaching in our schools. Now
that there's a shortage of farm
manpower, why not spread the
idea to all the country's
schools?"
The question was brought up
of how all this emergency food
was to be canned, with the
shortage of tin and high priority
on steel. Mr.. Ford had a ready
answer: dehydration.
ITS better that way" he said.
why, Mrs. Ford worked out
very simple little dehydrating
machine for apples. Her garden
club has taken it up now. The
thing works perfectly"
Mr.. Ford sat stroking his
brow and thinking, as he did be-
tween most of these observa-
tions. His statements were not as
fluent and consecutive as they
appear on the printed page. His
speech is as spare as his body
a body, incidentally, that is re-
markedly agile for all his nearly
30 years. He wastes no words,
nor any breath in uttering them.