Millard County Chronicle | 1944-01-27 | Page 6 | Floods and Drouth Destroyed Crops On 13 1/2 Million Acres Last Year

Floods and Drouth Destroyed Crops on 13 Million Acres Last Year j,aiesi reports rrom me u. a. department de-partment of agriculture show that growing conditions during the past year were probably a little better than average, despite floods throughout through-out the Mississippi basin in May and June and severe drouth in Arkansas and the surrounding states during the summer, and in the region extending ex-tending from New Jersey into Virginia. Vir-ginia. Total crop area lost was about 13,500,000 acres, government figures snow, neany z.uuu.uuu more acres than were lost in 1942. Pastures and most late crops suffered suf-fered from the hot, dry weather during dur-ing July and August, although June produced enough dry weather east of the Mississippi to permit farmers in most areas to catch up with late planting and haying. Showers m the corn belt and the eastern half of the cotton belt prevented pre-vented serious damage from the drouth there, and reports show that of the threatened corn and soybean j acreage to mature before frost. The i dry summer and fall also helped most farmers to complete their gigantic gi-gantic harvesting job. The 1943 harvest totaled about 347,500,000 acres, exceeding 1942 by I nearly 3 per cent or more than 9,000,- I 000 acres despite wet weather that prevented planting of some acreage, acre-age, losses from drouth, and flooded acreage that could not be replanted.