The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1901-07-26
CONDITION OF CROPS.
Southern and Southeastern Minnesota
is Considerably Effected by Heat and
Bugs.

DSS~s
Minneapolis, July 22.-H. V. Jones,
formerly commercial editor of the
Journal, telegraphs as follows from
Albert Lea, Mimi, to his paper, the
Commercial West:
Hot weather, with temperatures
above 100 degrees. and chinch bugs,
have destroyed the splendid promise
for the wheat yield in the sixteen
southern and southeastern counties of
Minnesota. The damage done will
range from total loss to 10 to 90 per
cent in these counties. A considerable
acreage will not be cut, so complete
has been the work of destruction by
the bugs.
This section of the state has been
infested with the chinch bugs in
small way for two or three seasons.
This year the insect has spread rapidly
under the favorable weather condi-
tions, and the first brood is literally
swarming through the fields and is
now threatening corn. The ground is
covered with the bugs in the fields,
where the destruction is practically
complete, and they are now moving on
new feeding ground.
The belt running from Winona
county into northern Rice county
seems to be the storm center for the
insect, and in this area the wheat yield
will be very light. The intense heat
added to the destruction of wheat by
ripening it in three days to "white
heat, all growth of the berry being
checked at once. The bugs had worked
on the plant until it was in no condi
ton to Withstand the heat
Many felds will not be cut, and in
some of them the hogs are feeding.
Farmers in the district that has suffer
ed most have given up the idea of Sc
curing more than a very light yield.
Four or five of these counties yielded
light last year on account of drought,
but they will not do as we'll as year
ago.
The heat has reduced the yield of
wheat greatly as far north as Wright
county, just north of Minneapolis. The
southeast part of that county will
yield light.
Taking the area south of Minneapo-
lis and east of the Omaha road, and
the west line of Blue Earth county to
the Mississippi river, and the wheat
yield will show very moderate aver
age. There will be comparatively little
twenty bushel wheat, and good deal
of five to ten bushels per acre.
Free born county will not come up
to the average of last year, Faribault
will come within two or three bushels
of last year record, Blue Earth will
fall off sharply. There was splendid
crop last year in northeast and south
ern Blue Earth. Around Madison Lake
there is fair showing this year, and
also around Good Thunder and Maple
ton, but all fields are blighted to some
extent, and in many of them the bugs
are making rapid Roadway.
There are fields of splendid straw,
promising from appearance, fifteen to
twenty bushels, that will not be cut or
that will not yield above five to ten
bushels. The farmers themselves do
not know of the unfavorable condition
of their fields. One old farmer, who
was cutting wheat near Good Thunder,
had not observed that the front groove
on his binder was well filled with chinch
bugs that had been shaken out of the
wheat.
In we'll formed heads many kernels
are only half formed, while others are
shrunken. The heat has stopped all
growth and the product will be poor
sample. The grade of much of the
wheat in these southern counties has
been reduced by the heat. No. north
ern is the grade expected for most of
it, and from that to chicken feed.
The yield in this district will be
less than last year.