Pages past - March 18

On this date ...

1978: Don Ware and his son, Stan Ware, were planting potatoes on their farm five miles south of Clovis near the Roosevelt/Curry County line.

Their Acme automated planter, which held 4,500 pounds of quartered baking potatoes, was set to drop a chunk of potato every 11 inches, dispensing 1,600 to 1,700 pounds per acres in the process.

Roosevelt and Curry County farmers were expected to collectively plant about 2,500 acres of spuds that year.

1968: President Lyndon Johnson addressed the nation calling for a program of "national austerity" to win the Vietnam War and complete his domestic program, according to a United Press International article.

"The time has come when your president must ask you to join in a total national effort to win the war, to win the peace, and to complete the job at home," Johnson said in a surprise appearance in front of the National Farmers Union meeting in Minneapolis.

"I ask you to join in a program of national austerity to ensure that our economy will prosper and our fiscal position will be sound," Johnson said. "We seek not the victory of conquest but the triumph of justice. We will win."

Pages Past is compiled by Betty Williamson. Contact her at:

[email protected]