SEC’Y WILSON’S OPINION.
Does Not Take So Gloomy a View of the Prospects as Some So-Called Experts.
HOPEFUL OF AN AVERAGE CORN CROP.
If Farmers Would Extend the Period Of Corn Cultivation Two Weeks We Could Look for a Big Crop—Says Farmers Will “Lay By” Their Corn Too Soon.
New York, July 24.—A dispatch to the Tribune from Washington, says: Mr. Wilson, secretary of agriculture, has favored the Tribune with a talk on the effects of the long-continued drought on the growing crops of the west. He does not take so gloomy a view of the agricultural prospect between the Allegheny and the Rocky mountains, as do some of the so-called experts who are not connected with the government service. Nor yet does Mr. Wilson attempt to minimize the injury already done and that will increase unless there is a great precipitation of moisture during the next few weeks in the vast stretch of country between the continental mountain ranges. While he acknowledged that the hard wheat belt of the northwest has been damaged, he does not yet despair of an average yield of corn in the corn belt, which he defines as extending east from the Missouri river to the Alleghenies, embracing the states of Iowa, Wisconsin, the northern part of Missouri and all of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
A Regretable Loss.
The most regretable loss from the view point of the department, declares the secretary, is that of the macaroni wheat crop. For the first time an experiment had been made this year in the production of this variety of wheat on a large scale in the United States. Secretary Wilson has been encouraging this experiment ever since he has been at the head of the agricultural department, and imported the seed from northern Africa, where most of the wheat is produced which supplies Europe and the world with macaroni.
The secretary is especially hopeful of an average corn crop. He says it will not be a record breaker or “a bumper,” in the parlance of the agricultural department, but, at this moment the prospects favor a fair average yield.
Advice to Farmers.
“If something could be done to induce the farmers in the corn belt,” said Mr. Wilson, “to extend their period of cultivation about two weeks this year beyond the usual limit, I would look for a big crop. But the usual season for cultivation is rapidly drawing to a close, and I fear that with comparatively few exceptions the farmers will ‘lay by’ their corn at the regular time, regardless of the drought. In the entire corn belt, with the exception of Missouri, which has a shallow soil, 30 inches of rain during the year is all that is needed to produce a crop. If even only 12 or 14 inches of this falls during the four months of production a good yield can be counted on.
Stir the Soil.
“The corn belt soil, with the exception noted, is deep, and holds moisture well. To utilize this conserved moisture to the best advantage in the absence of rain the soil should be continually stirred, so as to make what we call a mulch, until the crop is matured. Therefore, I repeat that if the farmers in the corn belt at this time could be shown the advisability of extending their cultivation season about two weeks we could look for a good yield this year. The farmer, like every other business man, always does what he believes to be best for his own interest, but in a case like this it is extremely difficult to disseminate broadly in farming communities the information that is of pressing and immediate value. By this I mean if we only could spread all through the corn belt the news that if the season of cultivation were extended about two weeks beyond the usual limit, there would need be no fear of the result.”