Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 245, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1914 — RAISES RECORD CROP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RAISES RECORD CROP

Walter Lee Dunson of Alabama Outdoes All Experts. Harvests 232 Bushels of Corn From One Acre of Ground and Becomes President of the American , Top-Notch Farmers’ Club. San Francisco, Cal. —At the head of the 9,000 young Burbanks of the cornfields of 33 states, who will swoop down on the Panama-Pacific International Exposition early next year, will be young Walter Lee Dunson, aged fourteen, of Alexander City, Alabama. He is president of the junior organization, known as the American TopNotch Farmers’ Club, representing all of the corn-growing states, and made up 6f both boys and girls. " No one may become a member of this lively body of intensive cultivators, who has not produced over 100 bushels of corn to the acre; and when it is remembered that heretofore a yield of 75 bushels was regarded by the older generation as something to brag about, the great work which these 9,000 winners are doing, to educate their daddies, will be apparent. But Walter Dunson has beaten the beaters, his record for last year being 232 bushels harvested from one acre; an amazing yield, which operated automatically to elevate him to the presidency of the maize raisers, the president of the club being, always, the boy who holds the record for the year. There are 33 vice-presidents living in 33 different states of the union. Each of these holds the top-notch record for the state in which he lives. The record ’of Vice-President J. Jones Polk (Prentiss, Miss.), is 215 bushels; of C. J. Wadsworth (Oregon, Ill.), 192 bu.; Ray Cameron (Kinston, N. C.), 190 bu.; Edward Eelborn (Madison, Ga.), 182 bu.; Homer Fletch (lonia, Mich.), 175 bu. The other 8,966 delegates to San Francisco are made up of three delegates from

each county of the 33 states, appointed by the governor. Illinois won the record for the greatest number of boys who scored above the 100 bushel mark, 204 boys having qualified. Each of these 9,000 delegates will bring with hSm, for exhibition, ten of prize scars of corn —enough to put a four mile golden girdle around the entire exposition. Already half the population of the earth is interested in the production and betterment of this greatest of our crops—most of the other half being consumers—and it is believed that the European war will add so greatly tef the demand and price of this cereal, as to point straight toward the millionaire class for any young man who can produce 232 bushels to the acre —if he can keep it up—and especially if he plants enough acres. The exposition, which will entertain these boys and girls, will open on time, and is now 95 per cent completed. Not a foreign nation, of all the 40 which agreed to participate, has with drawn. On the contrary, many since the outbreak of the war, have their appropriations and activities —notably Italy, Argentina, Japan, France and Cuba.

Walter Lee Dunson.