INDUSTRY ON PARADE MECHANIZED FARMING & HARVESTING FRUIT TREES PESTICIDES 65644b

This black and white film is one of a 1950-1960 television series Industry on Parade, produced by the National Association of Manufacturers. It contains a single segment: “Improving the Harvest.” A mechanical slicer cuts peaches in half. Oranges are washed on a conveyer. Corn is harvested. Tin cans move on a conveyer. A woman pushes a shopping cart in a 1950s supermarket. An elderly farmer holds a giant ear of corn, bred specifically to make corn cob pipes (:29-1:33). Grass is grown in Maryland. Multiple sprinklers water the field. Two-inch plugs are boxed for shipment (1:34-2:05). The greenhouses at the Jackson & Perkins research headquarters in New York are full of growing plants. A man uses tweezers to collect pollen from a rose and places it on the pistil of another rose to create a hybrid plant. A paper bag is placed over the flower to gather the seeds of this new variety (2:06-3:11). A McCormick corn picker shoots corn into the trailer. Snapping rolls mechanically remove the husks. Men remove missed husks and damaged ears. The ears are then moved to the Northrup King and Co. plant. Men check the dried corn as it passes along the belt and into a kernel removing machine (3:12-4: 13). At the Seed Laboratory, two women in lab coats open a germinator to remove bean seed samples to indicate what percentage will sprout. Another dark germinator is opened that reproduces a cold damp spring environment. Various sprouting seed samples are examined in the lab. Women sit and sort through moving batches of kernels to remove unsatisfactory pieces. Oats are also hand-sorted (4:14-5:37). A man quickly picks apples while standing on a ladder. At the Stark Brothers Nurseries and Orchards Company in Louisiana, Missouri, different apples are sampled by a group of men to find new varieties. Men use pen knives and tape to graft dwarf apple trees. A year later, scion branches are harvested from parent trees, bundled, and roped. In the workroom, the scions are joined to dwarf tree stems and grafted in the field. The trees are given fertilizer and sprayed with fungicides and insecticides. The leaves are stripped off and a mechanical digger loosens up the trees without damaging the roots. Men finish pulling the trees out of the ground and stack them in a truck bed to be sold (5:38-9:13). A scientist working for the University of Michigan uses a Geiger counter to take measurements from plants made radioactive to improve fertilizers. Alfalfa is shown being harvested; its growth recovery time sped up by radiation (9:14-10:40). A hydroponics farm in Miami grows crops without soil. The roots are shown, growing in gravel and water. Tomato seeds are covered in the gravel. A valve is opened to provide nutrients and water. Chemicals are openly poured into a barrel to spray for pests; the farmer unprotected from the spraying solution. The growing tomato plants in the hydroponics system are shown. Tomatoes are for sale at a road-side stand (10:41-13:00).

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com