Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1899 — GREAT CROP OF CORN. [ARTICLE]

GREAT CROP OF CORN.

PRESENT INDICATIONS DENOTE A BIG YIELD. Shonld.Conditiona Prove Favorable the Crop May Reach the Enormous Total of 2,350,000,000 Buehela, Far in Ex-, earn of the Mark Set la 1890. Bushels. Commercial estimate of corn crop .2,350,000,000 Government Anguet estimate. .2,148,000,000 Beeord corn crop (1800) 2,285,000,000 Kansas State estimate 400,000,000 Kansas record crop (1898) 247,000,000 Nebraska State estimate. 830,000,000 Nebraska record crop (1890).... 298,000,000 Will this year’s be a record corn crop, is about the only doubtful point now left as to the great American harvest. It is assumed that it is to be a 2,000,000,000 bushel crop, but there have been four Buch already; in 1806, when the total was 2,283,000,000 bushels; in 1895, when it was 2,151,000,000; in 1891, when the figures reached 2.000,000,000, and in 1889, when the crop was 2,112,000,000. It has been dry and hot in the West for a fortnight, and it kept getting hotter and dryer each day until the corn people began at the close of last week to fear that the prospect of a record breaker in their line was to be lost. The weather interest in the West just now centers around this. Has there been drought damage enough to the tasseled maize to spoil the prospect of a new figure, a new mark on the Western possibilities in the greatest feed crop of the world, the one which last year brought the farmers of the West over $550,000,000, which always greatly exceeds in value the wheat crop, and which is the one crop America raises for the world and in which it has no competitor? Of the 2,359,000,000 bushels of com raised last year the world over, thy United States gathered about 2,000,000,000 bushels. The Kansas authorities figure that the Sunflower State is this year to have about 400,000,000 bushels, and the Kansas corn is made, has been in large part cut. Nothing can now spoil the Kansas figure. The Government officials, always conserva-

tive in their estimates, put the Kansas yield at 346,000,000 bushels. Its record up to the present was made in 1896, when there was a harvest of 247,000,000 bushels. Nebraska is pretty nearly as far along as Kansas, some of its corn being cut in the south. Besides Nebraska has been well favored with rain, even while some of the other States have been suffering. The hugeness of this year's com promise is best shown by the official Washington estimates in bushels on the seven great corn States, compared with the two .previous years: 1899. 1698. 1897. Ohio.. QD.IXMkOCO 103,000,(KO 02,000,000 led... 120,000,000 1L0.000.00C 110,000,000 Itt... 210,000,000 200,000,000 233,000,000 M 0... 17»,000.00* 155,000,000 172,000,000 Kas.. 340000,000 133,000,000 162,000,000 lowa. 210,000,000 235,000,000 220,000,000 Keb.. 300,000,000 150,000,000 241,000,000 T0t.1,473,000,000 1,134,000,000 1,230,000,000 It is a risk of only a few days, a fortnight at the outside. Already half the corn area is beyond the danger point. In another week three-quarters of the whole will be made, and in a fortnight the entire crop will be secure. It is not remarkable, consequently, that the interest in the corn belt weather should at this juncture be intense, nor remarkable that the corn speculator should be especially apprehensive of the possibilities. It is the momentous risk of the day, of the greatest import to the entire country; to the farmer, whose Interest is direct; to the cattle man, the railroader, tlto merchant and the blinker, whose interests are hardly less at stake. Even Wall street kiiows that its rallies might be cut sensationally over night by an accWeirt in the uetf fWr dnyw to the corn crop.