Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1919 — PREDICTIONS OF BUMPER WHEAT CROP THIS YEAR [ARTICLE]

PREDICTIONS OF BUMPER WHEAT CROP THIS YEAR

Washington, May 2.—Prediction of the department of agriculture for x a wheat crop this year even larger than the record breaking crop of 1914, was repeated today by the United States chamber of commerce in a report baseb on statistics t obtained from all sections of the country. The report stated that an acreage never before equalled had been planted and a yield of 900,000,000 bushels was forecasted. “The condition of the winter wheat is so high as to be without precedent or parallel,” the report said. “It is, in fact, a monotone of perfection. The plant came through the winter and the trying month of March unscathed and unhurt. In many sections of the west and southwest it was necessary to pasture it to livestock to keep down its rank growth. “Reports of damage are mostly remarkable by their entire abserfce. More rumors of Hessian fly and some stray predatory insects, but that is all. Unless some climatic catastrophe, or some Egyptian-like and unexpected plague or insects intervene, the yield will probably be 900,000,000 bushels or about 33 per cent more than the great harvest of 1914. The report stated that one interesting sidelight of the situation was that about 25 per cent of the yield would be south of the Mason and Dixon line. Southern states which never before grew winter wheat, this year have large acreages planted, it was said. Reports showed that the seeding of spring wheat had been delayed from ten days to two weeks by excessive rains, and a decrease of acreage as compared with last year was expected.