Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1901 — REPORTS ON CROPS OF 1900. [ARTICLE]

REPORTS ON CROPS OF 1900.

Figure* of Department of Agricnltnre Show Good Condition*. The statistician of the Department of Agriculture estimates the United States wheat crop of 1900 at 522,229,503 bush* els, the area actually harvested being 42,495,385 acres, and the average yield per acre 12.29 bushels. The production of winter wheat Is estimated at 350,025,409 bushels and that of spring wheat at 172,204,096 bushels, the area actually harvested being 20,235,897 acres in the former case and 16,259,488 acres in the latter. The winter wheat acreage totally abandoned in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois is finally placed at 3,522,787 acres and the spring wheat acreage totally abandoned in North Dakota and South Dakota at 1,793,467 acres. The extraordinarily rapid rate at which the winter wheat acreage of Nebraska is gaining upon the spring wheat acreage of that State has necessitated a special investigation of the relative extent to which the two varieties were grown during the last year. The’ result of the investigation is that, while no change is called for in the total wheat figures of the tat*, 590,575 acres have been added to the winter wheat column at the expense of the spring variety. The newly seeded area of winter wheat is estimated at 30,282,504 acres. While this acreage is slightly greater than that sown in the fall of 1899, ns estimated at the time, it is 000,054 acres less lhan_ the area that was actually sown, the discrepancy being due to that remarkably rapid development of winter wheat growing in Nebraska with which ,ns above stated, the department’s reports had failed to keep pace. A comparison of the newly seeded ncrenge with that of the fall of 1899 shows that of the eleven States and territories that sowed 1,000,000 ncres or upward with winter wheat one year ago, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Kansas, California and Oklahoma report an increase amounting to 971,704 acres, and Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Texas and Tennessee a decrease of 1,780,191 acres. The average condition of the growing crop on Dec. 1 was 97F per-cent of the normal. There are many complaints of the Hessian fly, but the low-condition figures reported from Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee —80.80, 87 and 84, respectively—are fully offset by tbe exceptionally high condition reported from Kansas, Missouri, California, Oklahoma and other States, in all of which it is above normal. The production of corn In 1900 Is cell mated at 2,105,102,516 bushels; oats, 809,125,089 busliels; barley, 58,025,833; rye, 23,995,927 bushels; buckwheat, 9,506,966 bushels; potatoes, 210,926,897 bushels, nnd hay, 50,110,&00 tons. The area from which these crops were gathered was as follows, in acres: Corn, 83,320,872; oats, 27,364,795; barley, 2,894.282; rye, 1,591,326; buckwheat, 637,930; potatoes, 2,011,054, nnd hay, 39,132,890. The corn crop of 1900 was one of the four largest over gathered, while the oat crop has only once been exceeded. On the o*her hand, the barley and rye crops are the smallest, with one exception in each case, since ISS7; the buckwheat crop I* the smallest'since~ißß3, and the hay crop the smallest, with - one exception, since 18S8.