AGRICULTURE: Farming the Farmer

Shoulder to shoulder in Denver's Shirley Savoy Hotel last week sat 1,200 farmers, farm wives, farm economists and farm politicians, gathered in biennial convention to 1) urge federal farm subsidies ever onward and upward, 2) call for the scalp of Republican Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson-and 3) elect onetime Typewriter Salesman James G. Patton, 55, to his 13th consecutive term as president of the liberal National Farmers Union. Cried Jim Patton, sounding the N.F.U.'s anti-Administration theme: "Our patience has been imposed upon by those in power chiseling away at nearly every program...