Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1918 — FROST DOES MUCH DAMAGE [ARTICLE]

FROST DOES MUCH DAMAGE

Muck Ground Is Hit by Cold Wave ■ Saturday Night. Hundreds of thousands of dollars damage was done to corn and garden truck Saturday night when the mercury dropped to the frost point, and had it not been for the fact that the ground 'tfas very dry the damage would probably have been many times greater. In Jasper county practically all of the muck ground was hit, and while some of the corn may possibly recover, it is likely that considerable of it is completely ruined, and it is possible that some damage was also done to oats that are on the muck ground, as they are just headed out. According to dispatches the frost was quite general throughout northern Indiana and the aggregate damage may be $1,000,000. This frost came just seven days later than the June frost last year, but the damage wrought is probably much greater because of the fact 4hat all crops were much further advanced, some of the corn being nearly waist high now. None ot the crops on the higher lands -were damaged, apparently, but in some of the fields close to Rensselaer, in which there were patches ot low ground, the latter Wire hit quit's hard. The government thermometer at Purdue registered 43 degrees, and quite a bit of damage is reported in Tippecanoe county, where tomatoes were even in several places. Later —The frost damage seems to have been much greater than at first thought, and corn on low ground and along ditches, even though not on muck, was hit. Chamberlain & Marlatt lost fifty acres that was waist high on their Walker township ranch and it was laid flat on the ground; fifty acres is reported to have been killed on one of the J. J. Lawler farms Pleasant Ridge, and on all the low ground it suffered more or less. Down in Boone county it is estimated that the damage will affect at least twenty-five per cent of the corn, while in the canning factory districts great damage was doite to corn, peas, beans and tomatoes. All through the north half of the state the damage was great. Corn that was not far enough along for the stalks to be jointed will," it is thought, providing we have a late fall, practically recover from the set-back, but that most advanced is probably killed beyond redemption.