Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 170, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1919 — YIELD OF GRAIN DISAPPOINTING [ARTICLE]

YIELD OF GRAIN DISAPPOINTING

WHITE CO. REPORTS SHOW HALF OF WHEAT AND OATS CROP DAMAGED. / [By P. R. Bausman, White County Agent.] Monticello, July 19.—1 f anyone has the idea that farmers are lying easy on a bed of roses and waxing fat while their bank account is growing by leaps and bounds, they should take a trip through the country and talk to a few farmers now. A few weeks ago a great many farmers were planning how they would spend the money from a bumper crop of wheat and oats, and now they find at threshing time that they have only a very ordinary yield and that of poor quality. A survey conducted in White county by the United States department of agriculture recently showed 20 per cent of wheat heads infected with scab, 5 per cent of wheat heads had been destroyed by loose smut, 25 per cent of all wheat plants and 50 per cent of all oats plants were infected with leaf rust and 6 per cent of untreated oats was destroyed by smut. All this along with heat and dry weather. Is it any wonder that the yield is low and the quality poor? There is no doubt that this year, as usual, some newspaper will publish the story of some man whose wheat made 40 bushels per acre, or whose oats made 80 bushels per acre, and the average city man, as usual, will form his opinion of farming operations in general on the basis of those figures. But don’t get fooled, Mr. City Man, for every farmer who has a yield like that there are a hundred who didn’t get 'half that much and their story is never published.