Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1898 — GREAT WHEAT CROP PROMISED. [ARTICLE]

GREAT WHEAT CROP PROMISED.

Larger Acreage and Finer Condition than for Many Years. Preliminary returns of the spring wheat acreage, with the two Dakotas in particular subject to revision, indicate a total area seeded of 16,800,000 acres, which, added to the area in winter wheat, 26,200,000 acres, makes a total of wheat acreage of 43,000,000, or rather more than 3,500,000 acres greater than last year. There is an increase of 8 per cent in Minnesota, 22 in lowa, 10 in Nebraska, 11 in North Dakota, 8 in South Dakota, 5 in Oregon and 20 in Washington. The average condition of winter wheat js 90.8, as compared with 78.5 at the corresponding date last year, and 81.6, the average for the last ten years. The. principal averages are as follows:

New York 98 Pennsylvania ....96 Maryland 98 Tennessee ........93 Kentucky * 99 Ohio 87

Michigan 97 Indiana 95 Missouri .........96 Kansas 104 California 33

The average condition of spring wheat is the almost, if not entirely, unprecedented one of 100.9, as compared with 89.6 on June 1, 1897, and 92.5, the average for the last ten years. Nearly all the States of principal production report a condition exceeding that indicative of a full normal crop, North Dakota reporting 104, South Dakota 103, Nebraska 105, lowa 102, Minnesota 100, Oregon 101 and Washinglon 97.