cowman.html

The Mt. Adams Sun, Bingen, WA., November 19, 1953, page 5
Includes portrait - title below

To Frank Costanzo, Glenwood cowman, goes the 1953's title of Soil Conservation Farmer of the year for the Underwood district. The above picture of Frank and his dog "Smoky" was taken by Harold Fariello, Costanzo's neighbor and publisher of the Goldendale Sentinel.
This story was due to break simultaneously in the Sentinel and the Sun last week. The Sun's engraving was missent and failed to arrive in time for publication last Thursday.

GLENWOOD COWMAN AWARDED HONOR

"If reading books makes a farmer, I've sure read them," says Frank Castanzo, the Underwood Soil Conservation District's Farmer of the Year.
The modest Glenwood cowman is amazed at the distinction and would like to attributed the honor to his having served the Mt. Adams Chamber selection committee ham and eggs.
Frank Castanzo is new to ranching. He's only been at it four years. For 15 years he owned and operated his automotive shops at NE 22nd and Sandy Blvd., Portland. The business was prosperous but Frank hankered for something different. All his life he wanted to be a cattleman.
Five years ago he decided to make his persistent dream come true. He disposed of some Portland investments and started shopping for a ranch. In his mind was something very definite. He found it in Glenwood Valley.
For the first year and a half he worked in Portland on weekdays. Weekends he spent at the ranch. Then one day he says he retired to his thinking corner and took a long look at himself.
In his own words: "When a man can't meet every customer with a smile, it's time for him to get out and give it a younger man a chance. Any service business spells trouble. People don't come to you unless something is wrong. Suddenly I realized, Brother, you've got a ranch, so I turned the business over to my brother Jim and moved to Glenwood."

CANARY GRASS

Although Frank has read all the books about farming, he doesn't rely 100 percent on the printed word. He acknowledges that the Soil Conservation advice has been very useful. Men from the Service have helped him solve his drainage problem, and survey lines and grades.
But much of what he knows comes from practical experience. Frank was born in Portland went through Brooklyn grammar school and had one year at Benson Tech. The rest of his education came from the school of hard knocks.
He's accustomed to hard work. Frank and his hired man, George Taylor, work in the 810 acre "Old McGrath Place" three miles south of Glenwood alone. Both are bachelors with which Frank considers a time-saver. Except for hiring 12-year-old Lee Gribner for about a week last summer, Frank and George put up about 500 ton of chopped haying by their lonesome.
Hell Roaring water irrigate about 135 acres of upland grain, clover and grassland. But most of the tonnage comes from 350 acres of lake bottom meadows which have been plowed up and planted to Reed's canary grass. The latter is something Frank likes to talk about.
"A man with 80 acres of wild they hay hasn't got anything," he believes. "But 80 acres of canary grass will feed a lot of cattle. It's not only much better feed, but you get three or four tons of fodder to the acre as opposed to ¾ of a ton of wild hay. It also makes much better pasture."

NEAT OPERATION

This hay is field cured and chopped. A big suction machine blows it into the hay lofts. To these feeding the barns Frank credits much of his success to date.
He summers his cattle on J. Neils' plateau, and finds spring feed on the Klickitat above Wahkiacus. But at the home ranch cattle are out all winter. They shelter in the pine thickets that have been cleared of undergrowth.
But whenever they're hungry, they're free to come to the barns and feed at will out of the winter wind and weather. There is no waste of hay. Oil-heated drinking tanks maintain the water temperatures above freezing to encourage the cattle to drank three or four times as much as they would give the water were cold.
Right now the Costanzo operation runs about 195 cows, plus of their offspring. All the winter feed is raised on the place. Except for saddle horses and the hired man's milk cow we keep no other stock, says Frank, and absolutely no chickens.
"When I was a kid I worked a chicken ranch," Frank explains, "And that was enough. And we don't home-butcher. When we want steak, we buy it. Our business is raising beef we have no sidelines."
The Chamber committee who selected Frank was impressed by his housekeeping. Everything about their ranch, inside and out was neat as a pin.
One thing more is particularly timely. Frank has his own ideas about cattlemen marching on Washington. He doesn't believe in cattle subsidies. Price supports, he says, weaken initiative and open of the flood gates to every Tom, Dick and Harry.
The worst difficulty at present, he says, is expensive feed caused by grain parities. When one type of agricultural is bolstered, other phases of farming are proportionately undermined.