Daily camera., 1898-10-12
OUR BIG WHEAT CROP
The Largest in the History of the
Country.
Trustworthy Authority Places the
Assured Result at 75O,O0O,O0O
Bushels - It's Money
Value.

America has bumper" crop of
wheat and the last of the largest yield
he country has ever known is now be-
few weeks ago on the south line of the
great wheat belt, and now the harvest
is well under way in the Dakotas. The
assured result, on the most trustwor-
thy authority, is 750, 100000 bushels for
the year. Of this amount 400,000000
bushels is winter wheat, and 350,000,-
coo bushels the spring crop now being
gathered; an enormous yield which
eclipses, with wide margin, the 1891
crop of Gil, ,7S0, 900 bushels.
These high figures mean much. In
the first place they mean money
value Of $500, 100000, at the ruling
prices where the wheat is; they mean
that the United States has raised one
third of the 1898 wheat crop of the
world, and they mean that the wheat
raised this year on our prairies will
weigh 100000 100000 pounds. Grasp
these figures if you can. Imagine this
crop being discharged into space in a
stream the diameter of one grain with
each grain touching the one ahead of
it, and this with the rapidity of the
motion of the earth on its orbit, or
lie miles minute. At this rapid rate
20 years would elapse before the en-
tire crop had been discharged and was
strung along the earth's path in a
score of lines.
The productive country that has
raised this wheat extends from ocean
tc ocean and from the latitude of
southern Tennessee to the Canadian
border. Most of the crop comes from
the broad prairies of the Mississippival-
ley, and about 130,Ooo,OOO bushels of it
from the two Dakotas, whose principal
product is wheat. The crop in these
states is about twice what it was last
year, Tor one reason because there is
an increase of about 20 per cent. in
acreage.
A busy scene is now peing enacted
in these new states, where farms are
measured by the thousands of acres,
and where wheat raising is carried on
on scale known nowhere else in the
world. For mile after mile about the
frequent railway stations are vast
fields where grain stands three feet
high, and at the stations the conspicu-
Gus buildings are the large elevators
ready to receive the crop. At many of
these railway towns there are enough
elevators to supply each half dozen in
labitants with one.
The reapers have now entered into
southern Dakota, are rapidly eating
their way northward, and waving
grain is giving way to hundreds of
thousands of acres of stubble. THIS
means business for every one, and
every one is happy in consequence,
Teams are busy between the fields,
barns and stations, and the railways
are devising ways and means for'mov-
ing the crop.
TIE Dakota people are learning, and
who are settling in the states. and who
understand little else than wheat
raising. They are learning how to cul-
tivate wheat at less expense than for
merly and how to hold their grain for
a paying market.
The entire northwest has fortunate
ly been free from devastating storms
during the growing season, and this
great factor, added tc increased acre
age and better farming. has brought
a state of affairs which precludes all
thought of the starving farmers" of
whom we heard so much few years
ago. These same farmers are happy
now. They are independent, because
prosperous. They are becoming cap
italists. They are no longer paying
II and 90 per cent. for money, but are
paying six per cent, SO as to have
money to buy more land on which to
raise big wheat crops.-N. Y. Herald.