Drought, Dust, Disaster

Last week AAA reported it had spent $67,600,000 to reduce the U. S. wheat crop for 1934. At the same time the Department of Agriculture gave out its May estimate for the winter wheat crop:-- 461,000,000 bu., which was 31,000,000 bu. less than the April estimate and 171,000,-ooo bu. less than the five-year average. There was little connection between the expenditure and the shrinkage, for a crop reduction agent more potent than AAA was at work. From Saskatchewan to Texas, from Montana to Ohio hardly any rain had fallen for a month. As dry day followed dry day crop estimators lopped 2,000,000 bu. from their wheat prediction every morning. Before the week was out the winter wheat estimate had fallen to 442,000,000 bu. In Washington these were dry statistics but in the Midwest, disastrous facts. In North Dakota, which had barely an inch of rain in four months, there was no grass for cattle. Farmers tramped their dusty fields watching their dwarfed stand of gram shrivel and perish. A baking sun raised temperatures to 90DEG, to 100DEG. And still no rain fell. Water was carted for miles for livestock. Towns rationed their water supplies. In Nebraska the State University agronomist gloomily predicted that many fields would not yield over 5 bu. of wheat per acre (normal average. 15 to 20 bu.). In Minnesota they mocked Washington's crop predictions as gross overestimates. Farmers planting corn raised clouds of dust like columns of marching troops. Then came the wind, great gusty blasts out of the Northwest. It lifted the dust from the parched fields and swirled it across the land. It tore the powdery soil from the roots of the wheat and deposited it like snowdrifts miles away. Concrete highways were buried under six inches of dust. The rich fertility of a million farms took to the air: 300,000,000 tons of soil billowing through the sky. Housewives in Des Moines could write their names in grime upon their table tops. Aviators had to climb 15,000 ft. to get above the pall. A dust storm 900 mi. wide, 1,500 mi. long swept out of the drought-stricken West. In dust-darkened Chicago excited Board of Trade brokers bid up wheat prices 5-c- in one day (the maximum), raised the price to 93-c- a bu.--up 17-c- in two weeks. That day 6,000 tons of finely divided wheat fields fell on Chicago's roofs and sidewalks. And the dust swept on, until its thick haze could be seen from the windows of the Department of Agriculture in Washington. It hung for five hours like a fog over Manhattan--the greatest dust storm in U. S. history, proof to the East of an unbelievably successful crop reduction in the Midwest. But the Administration was not grateful for this help from the Hand of God. No fear did it have of a real wheat shortage, for the U. S. consumes only 600,000,000 bu. of wheat a year, has 250,000,000 bu. left over from last year. With a winter wheat crop of 442,000,000 bu., in addition to a spring wheat crop of probably half as much, the U. S. will not starve. But how farmers will make out is another matter. They would have so little wheat to sell that, in spite of a high price, they would lose severely. Moreover the drought had dried up pastures and ruined the hay crop. God's crop reduction may cost the U. S. far more for relief than man's crop reduction cost in processing taxes. The Cabinet devoted an entire session to considering the problem. Relief Administrator Harry L. Hopkins promised $450,000 cash to Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota. The Government also promised to buy a "substantial number" of cattle in drought areas, to ask railroads to reduce freight charges on cattle going out and feed coming into desolated states. Finally soft drizzles began throughout the Midwest, enough to lay the dust. But soaking rains were needed to save what was left of the crops and soaking rains had not yet come.

*Winter wheat, planted the autumn before from Texas through Kansas, accounts for about two-thirds of the U. S. crop. Spring wheat planted after the first thaw in Montana and the Dakotas, accounts lor the other third.

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