Day 233 - 26 03 96 - Page 3
DAY 233
HOWARD LYMAN, Examined:
1 was the time that we were talking about better living
2 through chemistry: get bigger, get better or get out.
3
4 Q. Can I just ask you to try and go a little bit slower, so
5 that people can keep up with you?
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. You may be very anxious to say what you
8 want to say, but it is much easier for our procedure if you
9 just answer Ms. Steel's questions. She may well take you
10 through the statement and supplementary statement which
11 I have, but do not take offence if I say that it is not an
12 occasion for making a speech. We have our own procedures
13 for getting your evidence out, Mr. Lyman.
14 A. I will do my best.
15
16 MS. STEEL: Sorry. It is probably my fault; I asked a very
17 wide question. If you can take it fairly slowly. So, what
18 that you were taught at the Montana University?
19 A. When I went to Montana State University, I was taught
20 in the use of herbicides, pesticides, hormones and
21 medication in enhancing the production features of
22 animals. When I came back to the farm, those were the
23 practices that I employed. Prior to that time, the farm
24 had been organic. After I came back, we became a very
25 large business, chemical farm.
26
27 Q. Can you tell us what size the farm became?
28 A. When I came back from the army, the farm was less than
29 500 acres, the maximum size of the farm. Prior to the
30 liquidation, I owned over 12,000 acres; I probably leased
31 another 100,000 acres altogether. So the total was about
32 112,000 acres.
33
34 Q. What was the maximum number of cattle that you had at one
35 time?
36 A. The most that I had was 1,000 cows and calves, 5,000
37 head feedlot; and so at one time I would have as many as
38 7,000 head of cattle.
39
40 Q. Was that all you were raising, cattle, or -----
41 A. No. At that time, we were raising wheat, barley, corn,
42 corn silage, alfalfa silage. We had 30 employees at that
43 time that were involved both in grain and livestock
44 production.
45
46 Q. Can you just explain how it was that you decided that that
47 was the wrong way to go about -- how you basically became
48 critical of the modern agricultural practices?
49 A. I enhanced what I learned in Montana State University,
50 using the chemicals. In 1979, I ended up paralysed from
51 the waist down. My doctor told me that I had a tumour on
52 my spinal cord, that I would have less than one chance in a
53 million that I would ever walk again. Just prior to that,
54 my brother had died -- who was a partner with me in the
55 farm -- had died of Hogkins Lymphoma. When I was in the
56 hospital, contemplating a life in a wheelchair, I looked at
57 what had happened on that farm from the time that I had
58 taken over the management of it. With the chemicals we had
59 used, we had eliminated most of the birds in drifts; from
60 the herbicides we were using, killed most of the trees, the
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