Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 163, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1918 — WHEAT CROP BADLY HURT IN STARKE COUNTY [ARTICLE]

WHEAT CROP BADLY HURT IN STARKE COUNTY

Starke County Republican. The extent of the frost damage to the wheat crop is becoming more apparent as harvesting ends and threshing begins. In the Hamlet neighborhood the damage to wheat on the low lands is in some places almost total. The frost must have caught the low land wheat just after the blossoming period. In such instances only a shriveled gram was produced, or no grain at all. . In some fields the grain refuses to ripen, and the milk in the berry has turned black, an evidence of decay and worthlessness. In some of the grain that is acceptable at the elevators the dockage runs from one-seventh to one-fifth. Of course there is some value to the dockage, as it has feeding value. The damaged fields, as a rule, are those that were sown late. However, in some of the very late fields, the wheat was not damaged so much, owing to’ the condition of the sheaf. As a rule, it was the wheat that had just passed the flowering stage that suffered greatest damage.