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Show , - : j vests of this year will be unprecedented i ;n tiie annals of agriculture. I Chief credit tor this remarkable SBOW-J SBOW-J ing the department gives to the fanner. Handicapped by a shortage of labor, a shortage of tractors, plows and oilier es-! es-! sential Implements:, in some cases handi-capped handi-capped by unfavorable weather, he has put into cultivation almost twenty mil- lion more acres than last year, and al-j al-j most forty million more than In 191t. I The bread cereals situation is a case In point. The total yield of the country lor 1917, of wheat, corn, rye, oats, barley bar-ley and rice was ."..703,006,000 bushels. Over this the report forecasts a gain of 139,166,000. Just how radical this increase ; is from the normal yield is shown in the I fact that during 1917 the farmers, in ; answer to the plea of war, produced i 1.000,000.000 bushels more of wheat than j during the preceding year, j TO what degree this increase will af- feet the American household cannot be i guessed at this time. Information Is reaching t lie wa r department Indicating that the wheat crops of Krance, Kng'.nnd and Canada are thriving past the most optimistic of hopes. 11 may be inferred from this that the demands of the allies on our wheat supplies will not be quite so great during 191D as during the present pres-ent year. This, added to the big increase In our own harvest will leave us with a comparatively abundant store of wheat for home consumption. It is altogether likely that the necessity of wheat substitutes sub-stitutes will be reduced in large measure. mea-sure. The largest increase in spring wheat harvests, it appears, has boen made by the farmers of South Dakota, where the yield has been 21 per cent over normal. Minnesota Is next with a 12 per cent Increase. In-crease. North Dakota, the largest wheat producing state, made a gain of 2 per cent. Washington! alone, shows a falling fall-ing off, by a loss of IT per cent. Winter wheat will maintain its general average, for, though there Is a considerable slump throughout the eastern states, this is offset off-set by gains in the middle west, notably In Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri. Gains, similar to the gain In wheat, have been made In the cultivation of oats, barley, rye and rice. Corn, though its increase is not so great as with other grains, will be more abundant this autumn au-tumn than last. It is worth noticing that the farms of the middle Atlantic and southern states have done most to raise the corn crop above average. While the report shows slight declines in various crops, it must be remembered that most fanners do their planting under un-der regulations of the law of supply and demand. Thus, the forecast of the white potato crop shows a drop of 37,000,000 bushels from the yield of last year. This, however, will afford an adequate supply, yet reduce the waste caused by the too abundant crop of last winter. The average aver-age of sweet potatoes has increased 6 per cent, and we are promised 5,000,000 bushels more than last year's supply. In the cotton belt the planters have expanded the acreage of cotton between 6 and 7 per cent; but in spite of this disadvantage they have maintained or bettered their normal acreage of food and feed. South Carolina, for example, shows an Increase of 5 per cent, Mississippi Mis-sissippi has gained 10 per cent, and North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia show slight gains. Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia have fallen fal-len off a little. Seemingly, the single cloud in the report re-port is the indication that sugar rationing ration-ing will be continued. The sugar beet crop has dropped 3 per cent, and the cane crop even more. We will be dependent, de-pendent, then, on South America and the West Indies for the major part of out-supply out-supply of sugar for another year at least. In regard to fruits the situation is. on the whole, promising. Apricots show a 14 per cent increase, lemons 4 per cent, cantaloupes 2 per cent and watermelons 1 per cent. Apples, oranges and grapes will be slightly less plentiful. Garden produce, hay, tobacco and flax keep their general average. Prices. In the main, show a tendency to fall, though perhaps the falls are not to be very great. The prices paid producers pro-ducers are now about 6 per cent under those of last year, although they are SS per cent higher than two years ago. Meat prices although SS per cent higher than in 1916, have declined slightly with a prospect of still further drops. By and large, the outlook is a rosy one. And we've the American farmer to thank for It. U 1918 and the Crops By Frederic J. Haskin. WASHINGTON. Better than anyone else in the country the American farmer 1ms made good at his war .fob. This is the verdict of the department of agriculture after a study of the current year report of Leon M. Estabrook, chief Of the bureau of crop estimates. The report details the total number of jvresJ under cultivation and from them make a forecast of the national crop yield for 1914. In themselves, the figures of the report go a long way in bearing out the claim ' of the department. All of the farm prod- I ucts vital to the country at this time BhoW With a few exceptions an average ; I increase of from four to twenty per cent over the harvests of last year; and this j ! in the face of the fact that 1917 was i known as the greatest crop producing! ! year in the history of the United States. I The significance of this may he best i appreciated when it is realized that the I reports of OTOP estimates are based on a Scientific knowledge of climatic and other relevant conditions-, and compiled and deducted with a technique evolved during dur-ing a forty years' handling of SQch problems. prob-lems. In the past two decades they never have been more than ? per cent in error. It Is safe, then to tate that the har- t J |
