Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1895 — CORN FOR THE WORLD [ARTICLE]

CORN FOR THE WORLD

GREATEST CROP IN THE COUNTRY'S HISTORY. Estimates of Conservative Statisticians Place the Yield at 2,375,000,000 Bnshela —Bailway Managers Put the Figures 25,000,000 Higher. Prospect Is Good. Confronted with a corn crop which promises to be hundreds of thousands of bushels larger than the largest ever recorded in the history of the country, the question arises: What is to be done with it? Railway managers estimate the crop at about 2,400,000,000 bushels, and even allowing that the interests of railway properties may have caused such managers to let their imaginations color the facts, the estimates of conservative statisticians based on the latest Government crop report make the crop over 2,375,000,000 bushels. Shortly after the war there was a time when corn had to be sacrificed in various ways to get rid of it, but only twice since 1874 has the yield reached 2,000,00Q,00C > bushels. In 1880 the yield was '2,112,892,000 bushels, and it was thought te be a record breaker for all time. The crops of 1891 aggregated 2,060,154,000 bushels, and the "Surplus was so great that in Kansas the corn was burned for fuel, it not being worth shipment out of the State. However, some of the best posted men in the grain trade are of the opinion that none of the crop of 1895 will need to be burned, even though it exceeds any previous crop by 300,000,000 bushels. On the contrary, the statistical position of supply and demand would seem to justify the opinion that this enormous corn crop will be a great boon to the country and prove the financial salvation of many a farmer whose wheat crop has been nearly ruined.

It takes a long stretch of the imagination to grasp the fact that 82,000,000 acres of corn, one of the largest acreages known, are now flourishing, under the most perfect weather conditions ever seen. Railway' managers have already begun to arrange proper transportation facilities for the corn, and the chance# are that every bnnhel of it will be used up or sent out of the country at fairly good prices. In view of this prospect it will be of Interest to note certain facts iu connection with our corn crops. Iu the first place, it is n fact that as a ru’e the larger the total yield the greater has been th* export, and generally speaking, the greater the yield the larger has been the percentage of the whole exported. The three largest and two smallest yields for the last thirteen years will prettv fairly illustrate the general fact. The'figures are as follows: Bush., Bush., P. Ct. r ' cro P- export, export. 1890 ...2,112,892,000 103.418T09 4.85 1892 ...2,060,154,000 1889 ...1,987,790,000 70,841,673 3.57 1888 ...1,450,161,000 25,360,869 1.74 1891 ...1,489,970,000 32,041,529 213