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Show Department of Agriculture Shows Effect of Jack Frost on Fruit The weekly news letter of tho United Stntes department of ngrlculturo .iao thl3 to say on jack frost and tho peach crop: It is said that the law of compensation compensa-tion works both ways If tho rich man gels his Jce in the summer, tho poor man gets his share1 in the winter. Averages Av-erages of peach production appear to follow tho came rule, 'according to tho estimates just published, by the bureau bu-reau of crop estimates. United States department of agriculture. Barring the possibilities of further disaster, tho commercial peach orchards or-chards of Georgia and North ana South Carolina will produce fairly heavy crops. California Is scheduled for a bumper crop, and several other states will not be far below their 1019 average in carlot shipments' of peaches, but theso good prospects are more than offset by tho frust damage inflicted upon tho orchards In olner states. Texas has been badly hurt, and so, also, have the Arkansas, Oklahoma, Okla-homa, Missouri and Tennessee orchards. or-chards. Tho New England crop Is reported ruined, and Washington, Utah and Idaho report severe winterkilling. winter-killing. To some extent the prospective prospec-tive crop is still further diminished by the decrease In acreage devotod to commercial peach orchards. Altogether th'u bureau of crop estimates esti-mates figures the conditions on April 1, 1920, to be about 77 per cent of normal. There Is a slight decrenso from this figure during the growing season, usually about 10 per cent, which will presumably reduce this early estimate to C7 per cent when the crop Is harvested and tho final count taken. Last year the April estimate vas given as S4 per cent, and the decrease de-crease was 0 per cent during tho growing: season. In terms of bushels the crop last yean figured 29,240,000 bushels of fruit. Allowing for tho normal nor-mal 10 per cent decrease in 1920, the crop this fall will be short of last year's production by about 3,000,000 busheU giving a total of 26,461,000 bushels for the coming harvest. |