<b>By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER<br>
Ohio Correspondent</b></p><p>

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Equipment on display at the Louisville National Farm Machinery Show gets bigger every year, said Dale Crumrin, who makes an annual trek from West Union, Ill.<br>
“Some of this equipment is so big you can hardly get it in under the rafters,” he said. “I’ve come to the show for years, and I find new products and things I like to look at and buy.”<br>
Crumrin took a break from the show to explain how he has lived on the farm his entire life. He was a teacher for 24 years and farmed in the summer. He returned to full-time farming when he retired. With his son, Eugene, he farms 700 acres of corn, soybeans and, sometimes, wheat.<br>
“I’m just south of the black ground in Illinois, about 30 miles from where all the good ground starts,” he said. “It’s easier to get farm ground there than when you get up north to better ground. Most of the better ground is owned by rich people, and rented out.”<br>
 Land in the area is selling for $2,500-$3,500 an acre and it is not very good ground. “The rough ground is selling great because lots of hunters come from Ohio and Pennsylvania to Illinois to hunt. Some people buy rough ground just to rent it out for hunting,” Crumrin said.<br>
He has good ground, which he still works. He was not looking for seed at the show, however, because he had already purchased.
“Seed changes so much you cannot keep up with it,” he said. “You cannot even buy the seed that you want because all the new genetics have been stuck on every good grain of seed. If you want one out of a triple-stack, you can’t buy it because they don’t have it.”<br>
For the first time, Crumrin and his son will plant Roundup Ready corn this year. “I think it’ll be all right,” he said. “My theory is that when you plant Roundup Ready corn, you plant Roundup Ready beans, pretty soon you don’t have anything left and the weeds begin to adapt and take you over; you can’t kill volunteer corn out of beans without putting something else on it, another herbicide.”<br>
Overall, he thought the farming situation is great right now, though farmers have to be careful of high input costs. As he prepared to return to the show, Crumrin said, “I think there’s a great future in farming, because the farmer is the most powerful person on earth, if the farmers would just band together and use it – but they won’t use it. They fight with each other.”<br>