The Farmer in the Dell

A cluster of reporters stood behind the big off-white barn one afternoon last week and watched while Irvington Roamiss Pear, a purebred Holstein heifer, got a thorough grooming. While they were watching the ceremonious cleanup, a hired man--or what most of the reporters at first took to be a hired man--ambled up to see what was going on. He was dressed in blue slacks, a blue denim sports shirt, white rubber-soled shoes, and a floppy Panama straw hat with its brim set at a rakish angle. In a quick doubletake, the reporters recognized the nation's best-known part-time farmer. After greeting his guests genially, Dwight Eisenhower approvingly examined the heifer, the gift of the Montgomery County (Md.) Fair, and asked how old she was. "Eight or nine months," volunteered a voice. Farmer Eisenhower looked unbelieving. "She's too big for that," he said. The estimate was corrected to 13 months.

Heifers & Ducks. Ike indicated a near by pasture and said: "Let's take her down there and turn her loose." The President unfastened the gate himself, and slapped Irvington Roamiss Pear on the rump. "O.K., you're loose now, baby," he said. The heifer reared up on her hind legs, clicked her front hooves and gamboled into the pasture.

After four days on his Gettysburg farm, the President looked relaxed and happy. It was the first time he had really been able to stretch his legs at the farm, and his first respite from his heavy duties around the White House and at the Geneva conference since late April. He looked around with obvious pride: the corn stood nine feet high in some fields, and the contoured hay, wheat and oat fields had been stripped of the harvest. The pastures looked a little parched by the midsummer sun, but a good, drenching rain would (and did, later in the week) bring them back. Farmer Eisenhower had expectations of a fair 1955 crop.*

As the President and his friends toured the farm, the place bustled with activity. Five men were busy building fences and weeding pastures. Near the house John Moaney, the President's valet, hoed a small garden. "You'll be a full-fledged farmer when you get through with your job down in Washington," said one of the guests. Replied the President: "Brother, I hope, I hope."

After a quick inspection of his duck pond (pop. 37 mallards, three wooden ducks), Ike summoned a strange-looking vehicle that looked like a cross between a jeep and a surrey. Over its open top was a fringed canopy; the words "Ike" and "Mamie" were painted on the front fenders. The car, a little Crosley, was presented to Ike a year ago by an anonymous friend for use as a golf buggy. But it proved too big for golf, on a field test at Burning Tree, and was retired to the farm. Ike climbed aboard, was driven to another barn, while his guests followed on foot.

Boars & Bills. At the second barn the President watched a Berkshire boar, the gift of the Glenwood All Breed Swine Association of Glenwood, Minn., being unloaded from a trailer. "Hey, he's a nice-looking fellow," said Farmer Eisenhower, as the pig romped out. "There's your new home, Butch; go right in." Butch waddled into the pig pen. When photographers asked the President to call the pig, he' obliged with a fine Abilene-style hog call. "Sooooooey, soooooey, hoh, peeg, peeg, peeg," he crooned. Then he glanced at his watch. "I better get back to work," he said. The reporters trailed after him into the small original fieldstone wing of the 100-year-old house. The President sat down at a small pine desk and glumly contemplated a stack of bills to be signed into law. "I built this as an office,"' he explained as he began to sign the bills that Secretary Ann Whitman handed him. "But Mrs. Eisenhower took it over, and the only office I have left is six foot square." Earlier the President had confided that he and Mamie had had a dis agreement about vacations. "My wife doesn't want me to go back to Washington, and she doesn't want to go to Denver this summer. She wants to stay right here." When the newsmen left him, Ike was busily signing bills.

Later in the week, the President returned to Washington briefly, for a Cabinet meeting, then motored back through the drenched green countryside to the farm at Gettysburg for three more days. This week he flew to Denver, where he will stay at his mother-in-law's home for a few days before taking to the trout streams. Meanwhile, he and Mamie had worked out a compromise on vacation plans. The First Lady will remain in the air-conditioned comfort of the Gettysburg farm this week. Next week, when he makes a quick round trip to Philadelphia for a speech before the American Bar Association, Ike will pick her up and escort her to Denver by plane.

* The 496-acre Eisenhower farm is now worth more than $250,000. The President paid $158,518 for the land, which he bought in five tracts (the most recent, a small wedge near his original purchase, was bought in July for $4,200), and the buildings. He has added an estimated $100,000 for restoring and adding to his house.

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