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Word: benediction (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
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Usage:

...Though these very large operations still constitute only 6% of all farms, they take in 53% of all farm cash receipts, almost double then-share as recently as 1967. These big farms are on the cutting edge of the marketing and technological revolution, as exemplified by the operations of Benedict Farms Inc. and its president and sole stockholder, Patrick E. Benedict...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The New American Farmer | 11/6/1978 | See Source »

...foot two and ruggedly handsome, Benedict is an odd mixture of shyness and aggressiveness. He speaks slowly and softly, choosing each word with care, and has to' be coaxed into talking about himself. But in discussing his business, he displays the combative urge that made him a championship wrestler in high school and during his two-year Navy hitch. Says Pat: "It's a sport I identify with. You're out there on your own, and if you can't cut it, it's pretty obvious." He feels much the same about farming, castigating many of his fellows for being...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The New American Farmer | 11/6/1978 | See Source »

...been expanding ever since he joined his father Edwin, now 67 and retired, as a full-time farmer in 1951 after two years at Moorhead (Minn.) State University. The Benedict family, originally from France (the first known ancestor came to colonial America after a stopover in England in the early 1700s), has been farming since Pat's great-grandfather moved to Minnesota from Wisconsin shortly after the Civil War. During the Depression the homestead shrank from 1,000 acres to 400 and father Edwin had to hunt partridges to help feed the family. But post-World War II prosperity enabled...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The New American Farmer | 11/6/1978 | See Source »

...profits and borrowing to acquire more land. Today the family owns 1,900 acres and rents another 1,600?underscoring a surprising point about modern U.S. farm economics. Tenant farmers these days are no longer the classic Southern sharecroppers, who have almost disappeared, but are often expanding agriculturists like Benedict who own land too. As it grew, Pat's farm absorbed four others; in three cases, he razed and burned the houses, uprooted graceful shade trees and returned all the land to crops. Says he: "Those farms had lived out their usefulness, and I guess I've brought them back...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The New American Farmer | 11/6/1978 | See Source »

...officers, then based in Denver, insisted on shutting down the mills on weekends, even during harvest time when beets must be ground up quickly before they rot. Recalls Pat: "We were at the mercy of people a thousand miles away who just were not concerned with our needs." So Benedict, as a director of the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association, organized 1,600 farmers to put up $20 million in cash, borrow another $47 million and buy out the company. Now they run the mills, sell sugar directly to industrial users and have access to a company computer that...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The New American Farmer | 11/6/1978 | See Source »

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