July 12, 1968
Page 20983
SBA AIDS MAINE POTATO FARMERS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the farmers of Maine are justly celebrated for growing the finest potatoes that anyone can produce. The popularity of Maine potatoes is demonstrated by the fact that Maine produces one out of every seven potatoes grown in this country.
But agriculture and industry are closely allied. They are mutually dependent. Agriculture cannot prosper without modern marketing and shipping facilities.
The H. Smith Packing Carp., of Mars Hill, Maine, one of the most modern plants of its kind in the country, is Maine's largest potato storage facility designed for fresh potato shipments.
This company, combining agricultural excellence with improved processing techniques, has made successful and imaginative use of a Small Business Administration loan. The Mars Hill experience is a fine example of the increasing trend toward the creative use of Federal funds to benefit both the producer and the consumer.
I share with the people of Mars Hill and the rest of Maine their pride in this new facility and in the reputation the firm has earned as a packer and shipper of high-quality Maine potatoes.
The story of this remarkable facility, and of the part the Small Business Administration played in making it possible, was brought to mind by an article published in the newspaper Potato Counciller.
Because of its interest to all small businessmen, and particularly to the people of Maine who derive their living from the potato industry, I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
SMITH STORAGE IN MARS HILL MAINE'S LARGEST MODERN PACKING PLANT
The H. Smith Packing Corporation's new plant in Mars Hill is Maine's largest potato
storage designed for fresh shipments, and one of the most modern packing plants in the state.
The huge storage and packing facility is a Stran-Steel building with concrete floor and steel partitions. The storage building, measuring 140 by 320 feet, contains 23 bulk bins, each with a storage capacity of 15 cars of potatoes. Each bin has an outside door for loading. The main walk or rollway runs between the bins. The storage has a total capacity of 140,000 barrels, or about 420 cars of potatoes. The 70 by 140-foot grading and packing wing is at right angles to the storage structure.
Eight automatic forced air ventilators, each with a gas heating unit, take care of ventilating and heating the storage bins. The heating and ventilating units are equipped with low limit thermostats as a safety feature. The entire plant is sprinklered.
The plant has a complete Meuret fluming system, built in Oregon, to move the potatoes from the bulk bins to the grading line. A flume in the center of each bin runs to the central flume which runs the length of the rollway to the packing shed. A slope of one inch to ten feet in the bins moves the potatoes into and along the bin flume to the main flume.
When the potatoes reach the packing room, a Draper chain pulls the tubers out of the flume and into the pump, with variable speed control to maintain the desired volume of potatoes entering the grading line. A rock eliminator gets stones out of the potatoes before they enter the pump, which lifts the tubers about 15 feet to the grading line. Head of water gravity flow is used to flume more potatoes.
The plant is now using water from a drilled well which has a capacity of more than 4,000 gallons an hour. An eight-inch main has been laid to connect the plant to the Mars Hill municipal water supply.
The grading and packing plant has completely new and modem equipment, most of which was custom built by WASA of Mars Hill. The washing and drying unit was built by Boneville Manufacturing of Presque Isle.
Equipment includes a 14-head Baker bagger, and an Adcox-Smith electronic sizer for packing count boxes.
Most of the potatoes in the new Smith storage are of the Russet Variety, and the fluming system and full grading line is used only for Russets. All the potatoes are bagged, boxed, or loaded in bulk for some commercial outlet as they run through the grading line.
Size B potatoes are bagged for shipment to such processors as salad makers and pre-peeling plants. Off grades are trimmed and graded as U.S. No. 2, and shipped in bulk to french fry plants.
Expanding roll sizes take off the top grade potatoes in three sizes. Ten-ounce bakers are drawn off to the one table, and 6 to 12 ounce tubers are perfectly graded by the electronic sizer for count boxes and tray packs. The U.S. 1 size A potatoes go to the Baker bagger to be loaded in consumer packs – 5 and 10 pound poly or mesh bags.
The Smith storage contains some Katahdin type potatoes this season, and the round whites are handled dry, brushed and graded out of the bin.
"This is basically a Russet deal," Herschel Smith, head of the firm commented. "The plant is designed and built for storing fluming, washing, and packing Russet Burbanks and Norgold Russets."
The plant can set 10 rail cars and three trailers outside the building at one time, and four trailers can be set inside the building for loading in severe cold weather. The packing plant has a capacity of about 10 cars a day. With the plant running at full capacity, 65 to 75 people would be required for the grading and loading operation.
The Smith firm will own about 1,500 to 2,000 acres which will be planted to potatoes this season, either grown by the firm itself or contracted. Herschel Smith said this year's plant will be mostly Russet Burbanks, with about 300 acres of Norgold Russets.