"Biggest" Campbell

Before the War, Russia was one of the world's largest exporters of wheat, averaging 4,173,800 long tons yearly. But last year, Soviet Russia was a large importer of wheat, due to: 1) inadequate transportation facilities; 2) to peasant dissatisfaction, and 3) to the total crop failure in 1924. The government now projects a campaign to increase the 1929 planted acreage 8%, to modernize farm methods.

While Russia's rich peasants (Kulaki) want to reduce their 1929 acreage, Moscow has planned a vast tract, of 10,000,000 acres, where wheat may be grown abundantly and efficiently. As everyone knows, the world's most efficient wheatgrower is Montana's Thomas D. Campbell (TIME, Jan. 14, 1938), world's "biggest farmer." Most natural, therefore, was Moscow's decision to send a commission to the Campbell farm at Hardin, Mont. There, commissioners heard that the annual Campbell harvest tops 500,000 bushels.

While the commission studied at Hardin, last week, Wheatgrower Campbell sailed on the Ile de France, to offer verbally his suggestions to the Soviet government and Dictator Josef Stalin. He will suggest the purchase of $100,000 worth of farm machinery, $50,000,000 worth of trucks. He will urge the immediate construction and repair of Soviet roads. Whatever U. S. wheatgrowers may lose from the recovery of Russia's export position will have been gained by U. S. machinery manufacturers.