Los Banos Rotary Club History
Wm. H. Alison Is Rotary Speaker

Wm. H. Alison, Merced county farm advisor, was guest speaker at the Rotary luncheon Tuesday noon, giving a factual presentation of agricultural importance and agricultural trends in this county. With a population of 55,000 people and an area twice the size of Rhode Island, Alison said Merced county is now the twentieth most important county in the nation in value of agricultural products; and is the fifth leading county in California, exceeded only by Los Angeles, Fresno, Tulare, San Joaquin and Kern counties.

Quoting U.S. census statistics, Alison said Merced county is sixth in the nation for total number of cattle—a gain of 55 per cent in the last five years; is now eleventh in number of cows milked; seventh in gallons of milk produced; and fourth in value of dairy products produced.

Merced county is also first in turkey production, sixth in alfalfa, tenth in grapes, eleventh in peaches, sixteenth in sweet potatoes, twenty-first in nuts, fruits, forty-sixth in rice, and forty-seventh in barley—dropping in this instance from eleventh place in 1940. The county now produces 85 agricultural crops of commercial value, and places among the first 100 counties of the nation in the 40 major crop production schedules rated for the Bureau of Census.

Alison pointed out that great as is our present production, there is much development of new lands to come, and he predicted that practically all present production records will be broken when the next census is taken in 1950.

September 2, 1947

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