Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1897 — GOVERNMENT CROP REPORT. [ARTICLE]

GOVERNMENT CROP REPORT.

The Average Yield of Corn Shown to Be 23.7 Bushels to the Acre. The November report of the statistician of the Department of Agriculture gives 23.T bushels as the 'average yield per acre j of corn according to the preliminary returns of the'department’s correspondents. The corresponding preliminary estimate last year was 27.3 bushels, and that of 1895 26.2 bushels. The average yield in the principal corn States is' as follows: New York, 32.5; Pennsylvania, 36.0; Ohio, 32.5; Indiana, 28.0; Illinois, 31.5; lowa, 29.0; Missouri, 25.0; Kansas, 19.0; Nebraska, 29.0, The average per cent of quality is 86.3, as compared with 88.4 in 1896 and 92.3 in 1895. The preliminary estimate of the average yiekl of buckwheaf is 20.7 bushels per acre, as compared with 18.7 bushels last year and 20.1 bushels in 1895. The averages in New York and Pennsylvania, the two States of principal production, are 22 and 21 bushels per acre, respectively. The average per cent of quality is 94.3, as compared with 94J7 in November of last year. The average yield per acre of tobacco is 646 pounds, ngamqt i? 79 poundsper acre last year and 743 pounds in 1895. The estimated average yield, .per acre of Irish potatoes is 64.6 bushels, as compared with 86.8 bushels last year and 100.7 bushels rn November, 1895. The average per cent of quality is 81.3, against 89.2 in November last year and 94.8 in November, 1895. The average yield of hay is 1.42 tons per acre, against an average of 1.21 tons per acre for the last fifteen years. In point of quality the average is 92.8 per cent, as compared with 92.9 per cent iu November, 1896, and 91.3 per cent in 1895. Favorable conditions for the sowing of the fall crops are reported from most parti* of Europe, and the condition of the crops, so far :us sown, is likewise favorable. The opinion is freely expressed that an increased area has been sown in wheat, but this appears to be more as a matter of inference from the natural tendency of high prices to produce £ueh an effect than as an observed fact. The crop reports from India continue favorable, and on the whole this is true as to those from Argentina and Australasia, but in all these countries the harvest is too remote to permit any very confident prediction as to the final outcome. In the case of Argentina it may prove that more damage has been done by- the locusts and the spring frosts than is yet apparent. There is nothing to indicate that the wheat shortage in Europe is any less than has been supposed, while the crop of Manitoba is now represented to be much below the official estimate issued in August and that of the Canadian Northwest territory is poor.