The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-05-02
WHEAT is GOOD
MIR. COburn Says Conditions
Better Than for Years. s
Places the Conditions at 81 Per.
Cent.
MILLION ACRES FLOWED UP
There Are Six Million Left i'm
the Fields.
The Army Worm Has Also
Done Some Damage.

| Inc condition of wheat in Kansas
is 81.2 per cent-100 per cent mean
! ing perfect-according to the crop re-
| port issued by F. D. Coburn, secre-
tary of the state board of agricul-
ture. +
The report shows that the total
| acreage sown last fall was 7,352,OO
and that 17.5 per cent of this, or
1927, 900, has been abandoned. This
leaves a total acreage at the present
time of 6,065,00O.
Secretary Coburn hazards no guess
upon the yield of wheat in Kansas
this year, but he does show in his re-
port the figures on acreage, condition
and yield for the last five years. The
condition of wheat as shown by yes
terday's report is better than it has
been in April since the big wheat year
of 1909, when Kansas raised over so
million bushels.
The detailed report for the state on
wheat, corn and oats follows:
Six Million Acres.
Kansans think they have now about
6,065,000 acres of growing winter
wheat, in a condition averaging 81.2.
This despite the vast areas being.
slain daily on LaSalle street, Chi
cago, and by the Pullman-touring,
self-confessed grain sharps, sent out
from that vicinity each spring on jour-
neys of devastation (who, If awake
and seeing is good, can see half a
mile) and just now as busy with their
prey as maggots in the wounds of a
lion. The figures given are a sum-
ming up printed today of what the
growers themselves, representing
every neighborhood in the state, ad-
wise their board of agriculture, un-'
colored by speculative interests, bulls
or bears, longs or shorts.
AS a result of an unusually pro-
tracted winter and almost continu-
Gus low spring temperatures thus far
all vegetation is less advanced than in
wheat plants have been slow in
growth and other crops will be pro-
portionately late in planting and de-
velopment.
Since the SHOWS have melted and
up to within few days, a major por-
ton of the wheat fields have been COW
cred with an almost impervious crust,
an inch to two inches in thickness,
detrimental to growth of the plants
in and above it and preventing in
many instances those from late sown
seed reaching the surface. Below this
crust the soil contains far more thanl
ordinary moisture, resulting from the
winters almost unprecedented snow
fall. The surface conditions are now
half inch to four inches, that have
greatly ameliorated by rains of one
fallen on much of the state in the past
four days and that are rapidly work
ing Improvements almost amounting
to revolution in the whole crop stu
alton.
While a, baked surface soil is al
ways regarded with more. or less ap-
prehension in relation to crop pros
perity, it is said by many that the
crust has prevented the winds from
drifting the soil and uncovering the
wheat's roots. The crust materially
aided in holding the surface soil in
place.
The best information to date is
that the land sown to winter wheat
last fall amounted to 10000 acres,
and IT'S per cent of this, or 1884,
900 acres will now be devoted to other
crops or left fallow. Deducting this
leaves, as before stated, 6,065,000
acres growing, or approximately one
fifth of the present winter wheat
acreage of the United States, and
about twice that in any other state.
Some former April acreages and
conditions in Kansas, with their
yields, are thus: