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Show HAILSTRM HAVOC GREAT DAMAGE DONE TO WHEAT CROPS OF KANSAS. Insurance Against Loss from Storms of This Kind Is Now Taken Out by Many of the Farmers. "Hailstorms have destroyed more wheat In Kansas In the last ten years than all the grasshoppers and eh neb-bugs neb-bugs since the statu was organized, said a farmer from southern Kuuiu, whose crop was destroyed by a recent storm In that section. "I-ast year ono hailstorm In tho northern part of Sumner county and tho southern part of Sedgwick swept an area :! miles long by two miles wide. About :1S,!HI0 ncrcs, most of It In growing wheat that promised to yield 25 bushels to tho acre, were destroyed. A half million dollars' worth of wheat was ruined In that ono storm." Tho hailstorm waa never feared by the Kansas farmer until wheal be-caino be-caino a sta.ilo crop. Corn will re.ovtr from a hailstorm and mako an average 'crop, but a light fall of Ice at a certain 'time will ruin a crop of wheat. May and Juno are the months of hallst'irms In Kansas. In France and Spain where the hailstorms hail-storms destroy the grape crop larfco cannon havo been placed on the bills alMivo the vineyards. At the approach of a hailstorm explosives aro shot Into tho cloud, and It's a belief among fanners laughed at by scientific npn that the storm Is sometimes dhsl-pated. dhsl-pated. The Kansas farmer doesn't bombard the clouds. Ho has found that It pays better to Insure his crops. Hall Insurance companies have been organized. The farmer Insures hli wheat crop against hall Just as the man In tho city Insures his house ngalnst Are. lie places whatever value on his crop ho can afford to pay the premium on. Some farmers occasionally occasional-ly Insuro so heavily that they would not object to n hailstorm to save the expense of harvesting tho crop. Tho llrst hall Insurance companies wero mutual companies, organized among the farmers of a county or a district. It wasoon found that those companies wero not safo because a hailstorm usually cleared a whole district. dis-trict. Then each farmer was compelled com-pelled to bear his own loss, for the muttinl company could not pay. East-em East-em capitalists havo formed a number of hall insurance companies In tho last five years. Farmers have a belief that hall will follow tho samo path for three con-socutlvo con-socutlvo years. So If a hailstorm destroys de-stroys a crop they Insure heavily for tho noxt two years. |
