Fat Year

In Washington last week President Roosevelt remarked at a press conference that he hoped for quick action in Congress on Secretary Wallace's cherished "Joseph" plan for insuring farmers against lean years by storing away part of each bumper crop (TIME, March 1). The President spoke day after the Federal Crop Reporting Board, having added up June 1 data from 40,000 farmers and field agents, released its estimates of the principal U. S. crops for 1937.* Most accurate to be had, the figures seemed to suggest that a cycle two years shorter than the Biblical one had entered its second phase and the time had come to apply the "Joseph" plan. After five lean years, U. S. husbandmen were assured not only of the biggest wheat crop since 1931 but of an export surplus in wheat.

In Texas, where harvest hands are already beginning to drift north after the first threshings, the Board estimated winter wheat production at about 39,000,000 bu. compared to 17,000,000 bu. last year. In Kansas, greatest U. S. wheat-growing State, the estimate was 142,264,000 bu. of hard winter wheat compared to 120,000,000 bu. last year. Winter wheat production for the country as a whole will be about 649,000,000 bu., nearly twice that of the drought year, 1933, and 130,000,000 bu. over 1936. Since this is roughly the amount of wheat that goes annually into the U. S. breadbasket, it leaves the equivalent of the entire spring wheat for export --according to the Board's best guess, between 175,000,000 and 200,000,000 bu. Because the critical month of May had been kind to winter wheat, brokers on the Chicago Board of Trade were pretty well prepared for the Crop Reporting Board's estimate. Next day, however, despite reports of black rust in Kansas, the price of July wheat dropped from $1.11 to $1.08 per bu.

Other estimates: rye, 45,974.000 bu. compared to 25,544,000 bu. in 1936; barley, 200,000,000 to 225,000,000 bu. against 147,452,000 bu. in 1936; oats, between 1,000,000,000 and 1,100,000,0co bu. -compared to 789,100,000 bu. in 1936.

*Except corn and cotton, on which first reports are made as of July 1 and August 1, respectively.

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