Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1898 — WHEAT ALL RIGHT. [ARTICLE]

WHEAT ALL RIGHT.

Good Growth and Developmeat Over About the Whole Area. The past week was marked by temperatures but slightly differing from the normal, at the beginning of the period rattier below and later rather above. Rainfall was received quite generally throughout 1 the Ohio valley, but not enough to inconvenience farming operations. No radical change marks the wheat situation except in California, where every day without ample rainfall in the San Joaquin valley appreciably diminishes the crop possibilities of the State. East of the Rocky Mountains the actual changes in the situation have been small. Wherever there are any reports of present accruing damage they represent but very small areas, and are of little consequence when the field is viewed at large. A few loir bottoms flooded in the valleys of the Oiio tributaries, and an occasional complaint of lack of moisture in southern Kansas and in Texas make up the sum of complaint. Against this there has been continued growth and development over almost the whole area, so that the wonderful improvement which was noted during the month of March has been continued in a less marked degree during April up to date. Two weeks ago there was a little talk of plowing up some fields in Ohio, not because of any winter killing, but because the crop was unprofitably thin on the ground from failure to germinate. Recent moist, growing weather luis practically put a stop to this talk, and with the exception of small areas, where there was no germination at all, it may be said that there will be almost no plowing up of wheat fields. Seeding of spring wheat is progressing rapidly under circumstances almost uniformly favorable. In this respect the season is remarkably early, and seeding is now being prosecuted in the more northern portion of the belt at least a month in advance of last year. Over the whole district the ground is working well, soft and friable, and with no rains to interfere with the work. As far north as southern Minnesota and South Dakota the bulk of the acreage is now in and the area seeded is limited only by the desires of growers. There are districts in southern Minnesota and in lowa which a dozen years ago were gisat wheat centers, and in which since that time the crop has dwindled down to nothing, where the acreage seeded this spring will make wheat the dominant crop this year. The same thing is largely true in Nebraska, and these three districts, generally overlooked in wheat calculations in recent years, are likely to prove large factors in this year’s wheat aggregate. Oats seeding has continued under generally favorable conditiohs, interrupted a little in some parts of the Ohio valley by local ex> cesses Of moisture, but elsewhere with no special drawbacks. Spring work Ip general and corn planting in particular are decidedly in advance of a normal season, and very greatlx ahead of last year. With the exception of low bottom lands in parts of the Ohio valley there has been no break in plowing during the past week, and unless weather conditions now become radically unfavorable the corn crop will be planted' much earlier than usnaL Early crop is up in Texas, and planting is under way in Oklahoma and southern Kansas.