Interesting article! How crazy is that! My dad farmed years ago, but got out of it. I don't know how they make it. I still laugh at some relatives that think farmers get rich; not the ones I know. I don't know how the average family farmer gets by. My heart goes out to them. The big corporate farms and companies are squeezing them out, and then you figure in foreign trade. Scary to think of the control some companies have over a person's farm. Well, this is just my opinion, not trying to debate with anyone.

disease resistance -- then again I have had many heirlooms side by side with hybrid that seems to do just as well and then again they have been around for 100+ yrs -- natural selection maybe!!! ***** it all depends on which specific diseases you're referring to. The foliage diseases are THE most common tomato diseases and NO variety, OP or hybrid has any significant tolerance to those diseases. There are a couple of varieties that have low level tolerance to Early Blight ( A. solani), but that's only of use to the large commercial farmer who can spray every maybe 6-7 days instead of maybe 3-4 days, so are of no use, really, to the home gardener. So one won't see any significant difference at all between hybrids and OP's when it comes to the common foliage diseases. Carolyn

As a personal financial consultant I recommended that folks have 3 - 6 mos. income available in case of emergency, 9 mos. or a year`s worth if their position was shaky or if they were on commission, self-employed, etc. ... and recently Suze Orman suggested in her Money Class book that 8 mos. is necessary. I used to say to some clients, however, that I didn`t always have such, myself, but that I had a rarely-used credit card, and a rarely-used line of credit available, so that I could use the credit card to cover an emergency if I lacked the cash, then draw on the line of credit (fully secured: backed by equities, not a home - I don`t own one) to pay off the credit card debt just after the first billing, to avoid paying high-rate interest. Then I`d figure to pay off the line of credit a soon as possible, to incur only a smallish interest cost. In my 80s, by the way, I`m about 80% invested in stocks and stock-based mutual funds ... and I haven`t bought a mutual fund in about 20 years: I prefer to study up stocks and buy my own ... then pay myself the 2.5% or higher fees that the mutual fund managers charge annually (1.5% or higher in the U.S.). If those managers are so smart ... how come about 80% or more of mutual funds don`t outperform the section of the market in which they invest(question mark - I`m getting a capital ``�`` with a, French, grave accent over it - as you can see in the E that I posted - which was supposed to be in quotation marks, and you see what resulted). I figure that well-chosen equities will quite likely retain most of their value after 10 years or so, and I expect that most of my assets have a good 10-year time horizon, as I live, rather frugally, by choice, within my pensions` income, so my investments are more or less `play money`: I don`t expect to have to draw on it, any time soon ... as I feel that I should plan to fund my retirement to age 100, at least ... 110, better. Running out of days before running out of money is, in my opinion, better than the other way around. Thus, some quality, dividend-paying stocks are, I think, the way to fly, as they drop less in adverse markets, and usually recover, given time. Furthermore, I get a very important tax credit on dividend income on Canadian-based stocks, and later, should my stocks develop a capital gain, I pay tax on only half of it. Plus ... if I give it to a charity, I get a tax-deductible receipt for the full amount ... and pay no tax on the capital gain, which, for a stock that I`ve held for 40 years, can be substantial. Not only that ... my kids, in the neighbourhood of 50, aren`t in major need of money, and on my death can let those assets just continue to run. The base cost amount for them will be the value of the stock at my death ... and my estate will have had to pay tax at regular rate on half of those capital gains ... but some of those stocks, the ones with major capital gains developed, will be given to churches and charities: tax cost avoided. ole (frugal) joyful

chisue wrote: "Did you mean to look at the CD yields by deducting the percentage of our tax bracket, or something else?" I'm not a financial planner (and wouldn't want to steer you in the wrong direction) so I would suggest asking your broker or CPA this question. Martin Weiss (Weiss ratings) talked about treasuries in April 06'. Here is what he had to say. "I can put my keep-safe money in 3-month Treasury bills or in a Treasury-only money market fund. The advantages are many: Advantage #1. Safety. As long as I wait the 13 weeks until my T-bills mature, the Treasury Department guarantees zero risk of loss. And even in the very rare event that I sell them on the secondary market at a loss, the loss would be so tiny I'd need a microscope to see it. Is the U.S. Treasury really a good credit risk? Some people are so concerned about the government's bulging debts and run-away deficits they're beginning to wonder, and I don't blame them. But it's still the highest rated borrower on the planet. So until someone offers me a better alternative, that's where my keep-safe money is staying. Advantage #2. Rising yield. A couple of years ago, the yield on short-term Treasury bills was hovering so close to the zero line it felt like I was paying the government for the privilege of loaning it my money. Plus, at that time, there was a big gap between the ultra-low yield on 3-month T-bills and the still-decent yield on 30-year Treasury bonds. But now T-bills yields have mostly caught up, and the gap has narrowed tremendously. Every time the Fed hikes interest rates by a quarter point, the yield on my T-bills promptly rises by about a quarter point. And every time Wall Street trumpets no more rate hikes coming, the Fed sends not-so-subtle hints that it's going to raise them some more. That's what happened after the last Fed meeting. And from everything I can see, that's what's going to continue happening after the next Fed meetings for as far as the eye can see. Good. My T-bill yield, although still not high enough to give me any thrills, just keeps moving up and up. Advantage #3. Liquidity. With a Treasury-only money fund, I can get my money out so quickly it's like having the cold cash in my night table when I wake up every morning. I can write checks on the fund to immediately pay my bills. Or I can call the fund and have them wire the money to my local bank within 24 hours. Advantage #4. One Account. Some people have bank accounts coming out of their ears. They've got checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts and various CDs under the $100,000 FDIC limit. I don't. Except for a local checking account I use for small monthly bills, I have just one single, multi-purpose Treasury-only money market account that does it all. It's not FDIC insured. But that doesn't bother me because the U.S. Treasury Department guarantees all the securities that the fund buys on my behalf. Advantage #5. Exempt from local income taxes. On the surface, the yields on CDs and Treasuries are similar. But there's a significant difference: The Treasuries and Treasury-only money funds are exempt from local and state income taxes. Bank CDs and money funds invested in CDs are not. This isn't an issue for us now because we live in Florida, and Florida has no state income taxes. But it certainly would have made a difference when we lived in New York. Ditto for states like California or Massachussets. Advantage #6. Inflation protection. People ask: Suppose inflation surges or the dollar falls in value? What good are your dollar-denominated Treasury bills going to do you then? Answer: I get most of my protection from the rising yield: The higher inflation goes, the better my yield is going to get. Will the higher yield always be enough to cover the loss in the dollar's purchasing power? Probably not. But in any case, I can get the rest of my protection elsewhere." This story is archived at www.moneyandmarkets.com/press.asp?cat_id=25 "The Big Picture" by Martin Weiss-April 17, 2006 He offers a free newsletter as well as other services. A link that might be useful: SafeMoney.com