Wheat & Dust

A farmer isn't happy unless he has sand in his beard.

Last week farmers in ten Midwestern States had sand in their beards, in their hair, in their ears, in their eyes, in their mouths, in their pockets, in their pants, in their boots, in their milk, coffee, soup and stew. Dust poured through the cracks in farmhouse walls, under the doors, down the chimneys. In northwest Oklahoma a hundred families fled their homes. Every school in Baca County, Colo, was closed. In Texas the windswept hayfields were alive with blinded sparrows. Methodist congregations in Guymon, Okla. met three times a day to pray for rain._ Originally confined to a 200-mile strip between Canada and Mexico, last week's dust storm suddenly swirled eastward over Missouri, Iowa and Arkansas, crossed the Mississippi to unload on Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana. With half the nation blanketed in silt, farmers everywhere were asking what was going to happen to the wheat crop.

Last week the Crop Reporting Board of the Department of Agriculture gave its second answer for 1935. U. S. farmers had planted 44,306,000 acres in winter wheat last autumn, said the report. Drought and dust had forced them to abandon 12,405,000 acres. The wheat standing on the remaining 31,901,000 acres on April 1 was estimated to yield 435,499,000 bu.-- 69% of normal. That was slightly more than last year's yield, but far below the 618,000,000-bu. average of the last five years. East of the Mississippi, and particularly in the Ohio Valley where the soil was moist, crops were in good condition. But west of the river, in the ten States chiefly affected by drought and dust, more than 40% of the winter wheat seeded last autumn was expected to fail. Hardest hit was Kansas where rainfall in March was only 56% of normal and the crop 47% of normal. Last week six Kansas counties reported their wheat crop a total failure. In the spring wheat States (Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin) the yield of the crop now being planted was estimated at 190,000,000 bu. This, added to the winter wheat crop, will just about cover the annual U. S. wheat consumption of 625,000,000 bu. But the Agriculture Department's figures were drawn up before last week's dust storm. Its damage, estimated in the millions, may well throw the country back upon its wheat surplus (expected to total 145,000,000 bu. on July 1), may even result in the importation of wheat for ordinary flour.

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