Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 194, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1910 — A BUMPER WHEAT AND CORN CROP. [ARTICLE]

A BUMPER WHEAT AND CORN CROP.

The Government Sees The Biggest Corn Crop In History—Wheat Yield 669,000,000. Official estimates for August, as made by the Agricultural department at Washington, show that corn, is still king, with a promise of the largest big losses last month west of the Missouri river. Despite losses of 220,000,000 bushels last month, the crop promise now stands at 2,940,000,000 bushels, or just 13,000,000 bushels more than the bumper crop of 1906. Oats have also distanced the previous bumper crop by 13,000,000 against 1,009,353,000 bushels last year, which was the first time the oats crop of the United States ran into the bil-lion-bushel class. Except for serious scorching in the northwest, the present crop would have shown phenomenally, providing, of course, that recent excellent filling, maturing and harvest weather in the big producing states had not been marred.

Winter wheat, however, furnished a surprise even to the most optimistic, although it was known to everybody that the grain was of magnificant quality and was weighing out handsomely. Its preliminary showing, as given in figures by the department, is for a yield 12,000,000 bushels larger than that of last, ye.ar. and puts this year’s crop as second largest in the country’s history, the crop of 492,000,000 bushels raised in 1906 being first. The losses shown in spring wheat a month ago measured virtually all of the crop loss of the year. The spring wheat crop is small enough to pull the total wheat production down to 669,000,000 bushels, a total which has been beaten five times in the last decade. One of the important features of

the crop report that was mainly overlooked by speculators yesterday was the sensational loss in hay. The August indication is for a total crop of about 54,000,000 tons, which compares with 64,938,000 tons in 1909 and with 70,798,000 tons in 1908, when the larg est hay crop on record was produced. This immense shortage in hay, when taken in connection with the almost universally short pastures, will have a most important bearing on the feeding situation and undoubtedly will have much influence in determining prices of the feeding grains. Similarly the short crop of potatoes may effect to some extent the price of wheat. The report indicates that potatoes ate a three-fourths crop. The crop reporting board of the bureau of statistics of the United States Department of Agiculture issued at Washington Thursday, estimates from the reports of the correspondents and agents of the bureau as follows: The average condition of corn Aug. 1. was 79.8, as compared with 85.4, last month, 84.4 Aug. 1, 1909, and 82.1, the average for Aug. 1, for the last ten years. Preliminary returns indicate a winter wheat yield of about 15.8 per acre, or a total of about 458,294,000 bushels as compared with 15.8 and 446,366,000 bushels respectively, as finally estimated last year. The average quality of the crop is 92.6, against 90.3 last year.

The average condition of the oats crop Aug. 1, was 81.5 as compared with 82.2 last month, 85.5 Aug. 1, 1909, *76.8 Aug. 1, 1908, and 82.6 the tenyear average Aug. 1. The proportion of last year's oats crop in farmers hands Aug. 1 was about 6.3 per cent, of 63,249,000 bushels, compared with 3.3 per cent (26,323,000 bushels) of the 1908 crop on hand Aug. 1, 1909 and 5.8 per cent (50,398,000 bushels), the average proportion on hand for the last ten years August, 1.