Drought

Busy though they were, husbandmen throughout the land last week were conscious of these prime events:

Wheat. President Hoover completed his Federal Farm Board by "drafting" as its wheat member Samuel Roy McKelvie, Republican, Methodist, Mason, Odd Fellow, Elk, onetime (1919-23) Governor of Nebraska, where he is still known as a "political farmer." No wheat-grower, he publishes the Nebraska Farmer through which he preaches his agricultural gospel: no equalization fee; no debenture; the farmer must help himself. Wheat growers had rowed so long among themselves over a representative on the Hoover board that the President, impatient, picked Mr. McKelvie as his own compromise. Aged 48 and conservative. Mr. McKelvie anticipated that the reduction of the wheat crop by parching weather "ought to make it easy for the Board."

Last week the Southwestern wheat harvest was clogging Gulf ports. Kansas farmers were dumping their crops on the market. At Galveston a rail embargo had been declared. "HOLD YOUR WHEAT!" cried the Federal Farm Board in Washington as the fear grew that the lake ports would next be stuffed with an excessive harvest. Said Chairman Legge: "It seems unfortunate to crowd wheat on the market faster than existing facilities can handle it, resulting in cash prices much lower than contract prices for future delivery."

At Baton Rouge. The first week's session of the American Institute of Co operation, meeting at the Louisiana capi tal, produced a super-cooperative organization--The National Chamber of Agricultural Cooperatives. Its purpose: To join together all farm cooperatives. Its new president : Christopher Otto Moser of Dallas, head of American Cotton Growers Exchange.

The Weather. Hot dry days continued throughout the land as farmers despair ingly watched their acres brown under a relentless sun. Even the potent Federal Farm Board was not potent enough to bring the relief that only long soaking rains could give. Corn tassels burned. Live stock on the ranges drank from dwindling water holes. Truck gardeners saw their vegetables shrivel up and die. In many a city officials worried over the water supply. Forest fires licked menacingly through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Idaho, California. Greatest in a score of years had been the July drought.

When intermittent storms did come, they were destructive. In Connecticut two million dollars worth of broad-leaf tobacco was shredded to ruin by a terrific hail storm. Sudden cloudbursts in Iowa in undated crops, swept away roads and bridges, delayed trains.

New York had no such worry. In its Catskill and Croton reservoirs were 240 billion gallons of water, enough to carry through until next year without rain.