South Jersey 4-H members keep agricultural spirit alive

Bourbon, all 270 pounds of Hampshire-cross hog, was grunting merrily as his owner, Kyle Dupper, tried to give him a little nudge.

Dupper, 18, of Woolwich, is the ambassador of the Gloucester County 4-H Club, the leader of 450 members in 52 clubs from kindergarten through the first year of college.

He has been showing dairy cows, steers, and hogs at the annual 4-H Fair. Because he is headed for college in a few weeks, Bourbon will be his last show hog.

Dupper will sell him at the 4-H hog auction Friday night - and Bourbon will most likely be ham and bacon by next week.

"I have long understood that this is where the hogs and steers are going, so I don't get sentimental," Dupper said while looking somewhat lovingly at Bourbon. "I have been fortunate, I think, through 4-H to understand, where many people don't, where the food on our table comes from and why you have to raise it well."

The Gloucester County 4-H Fair, and the peach festival adjacent to it, continues through Sunday - the climax of the year for those young people who revel in what might be called the agricultural arts.

Though the fair will have rides and a midway of games and musical acts, for participants the pith of the four days will be the competitions and auctions surrounding their animals and plants, large and small.

Alexis Sleeth, 14, and her brother Caleb, 8, of Blackwood, belong to the Better Bunny and Small Animal 4-H Club out of Pitman. This year, the two are showing four tiny gerbils - two of each gender - that she has tended since they were born last fall.

"I have just always loved little animals and, of course, you can keep them in your house, not like a horse," said Alexis, who also has a guinea pig and a mouse.

She has several stairways and wheels made from Popsicle sticks that she has trained her gerbils to use. She has tried to breed them so they have tufted tails - which judges like - and the proper markings all about.

"It is not so much the exact rules, but that the kids in 4-H learn responsibility and how to care for animals, which makes them, I think, better people all around," said Linda Strieter, senior program coordinator for 4-H youth development, part of the Rutgers Cooperative Extension in Clayton.

The organization, Strieter said, is often thought of as just a way to show farm animals, but Alexis, she noted, spent a week this summer in Washington learning leadership training through 4-H, getting, for instance, to meet New Jersey congressmen to tell them about the need for good agricultural and ecological standards.

Dupper will attend Virginia Tech University to study crop and soil science. Though he lives "in town" in Woolwich, he got interested in livestock and farming by going to the farms his aunt and uncle, Janie and Don String, have had around South Jersey, where he has kept his livestock.

"I may not live on a farm, but I stayed with 4-H because I know how important improving agriculture is," said Dupper, who has earned several 4-H scholarships for college. "I know there are many ways I can help out, and I think studying crops and soils will have me helping everyone."

Cecilia Floyd and Shannon Dickinson don't live on farms either, but their adviser, Katie Pratt of the Little Bits 4-H Club, a 22-girl horse club, does. Cecilia, 14, of Mantua, and Shannon, 17, of Mullica Hill, board their horses, Skip - a 5-year-old gelding - and Paint - a 6-year-old mare - at A Bit of Pleasure Farm in Mullica Hill, owned by Katie's parents, Peggy and Fran Pratt.

Katie Pratt, 23, who works on the farm, started in 4-H 15 years ago.

"I just loved horses. I guess lots of girls do," she said. "And I want to encourage girls, especially those who don't live on farms, to know about horses and riding and just being responsible for the chores that go around having an animal."

Shannon's family moved from Barrington to the more rural Mullica Hill when she was 10. She had always wanted a horse, she said, and when the family moved, she felt she could press the matter.

"Goats were too little. I wanted a big horse," she said. "Horses are peaceful and I just thought it would be right for me."

Cecilia agreed and got her horse two years ago because "horses are like babies and I always loved little kids. They love attention and running around."

The girls visit and ride their horses about four or five times a week, said Pratt, who boards about half the horses for the girls in the club. Though members ride or take lessons on their own, the club meets once a month, most often at the Pratt farm.

"They learn mostly about care and anatomy and that sort of thing at meetings," Pratt said. "We want them to know as much as they can before they just go off and ride."

Strieter said she wasn't sure whether suburbanization in Gloucester County is a spur or detriment to 4-H participation.

"You could look at it either way, that with farmland shrinking, kids crave it more, or that the lack of farms may drive them away," she said. "But I think those kids who join are really dedicated to knowing what goes on in agriculture and animals, and what we need to continue in the future, especially with that shrinking open land."