The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1912-10-27

uuired to coax them from the ground
10 put them into marketable form and
to place them before the hungry mil
lions of consumers. What does it all
mean to the producer, to the transpor-
tation companies and their armies of
worlxmen, and to the makers of the
thousands of articles that will be ex-
changed for this enormous supply of
foodstuffs? What does 1t mean to the
consumer? What will tbs years yield
do for next years grocery bills? That
In itself is a highly practical question.
S1o.O0o.0oo A Day.
For one thing, bumper crops mean
the movement of men and machines
on a scale so big that there is nothing
like it on earth. Only one thing ap-
proaches 1.-THE movements of great
armies. The hired HANDS alone. who
are engaged for the harvest and do
not work regularly as farm laborers,
number $50 1000. The strength of both
armies at Gettysburg was only $4,000
men. Both armies at Waterloo num-
bered 100000. The Japanese carried
Port Arthur in the greatest siege of
the worlds history, and fewer men
fought in that campaign. The hired
ndnQS IN the wheat EtelOS alone, q
mere division of the harvest time
army, draw $10,000.000 in pay for their
brief term of enlistment. But all these
are only part of the army in the fields
There are over a million farm laborers
who work on the farms the year round
In the geat grain states of the west
alone the farm operators, men who
own or rent grain land and help in
gathering the harvest, number more
than 2,240.000 That brings up the
force of the harvest army that Is ac-
tually in the field to a total of over
100000 men. No single army so
great as that ever trod the earth.
And certainly no army ever marched
with such baggage train. The horses
that work in the grain fields, drawing
harvesters or headers or carts, num-
Der more than 100000. Carts, har-
vesters and all the rest count up about
100000 pieces of apparatus. In a
single line of march along straight
road, driving nose to tailboard, these
horses and machines would reach for
25,S54 miles. or more than the entire
distance around the earth.
Yet the work in the fields is only
a beginning. Moving the crops to
market is another gigantic task. The
yield of wheat estimated this year at
$50 000.0 900 bushels, would make a river
as wide as a city street and four feet
deep reaching from Chicago to New
York The oat crop is estimated at
1.400, 000, 900 bushels. The corn crop,
biggest of all, this year will run over
5000, 0oo, 900 to $50. 900, 900 bushels more.
or a total of $500, 900 bushels more,
cereal crops alone. II 1t were attempt
ed to store this grain in New York
city 1t would bury lower Manhattan
to q depth of 1890 feet. The sky
scrapers that now dot the lower end
of the island would be blotted out.
on the northern slope of this huge
grain pile the top OF the 900-foot
Woolwortn building, tallest in the
world. would jut out, but the peak of
the grain mountain would be 500 feet
above even this point.
The movement OF this vast output
adds millions of dollars to the gross
earnings of the railways-five million
dollars to the granger roads alone
for hauling grain to the primary mar
kets 1t means. at prevailing prices.
the distribution of more than four bill
lion dollars among the farmers and
their employees from the great staple
grain crops mentioned. It means a
tremendous impetus to all lines of
trade and manufacture producing and
distributing the things for which this
four billion dollars viii be spent. But
when it comes to the question Of the
effect on retail prices there is little
hope to be held out to the anxious con-
sumner that tho enormous N-iafdS IF 1Q1 .
will have more than a very slight eff
feet upon the rising cost of living We
have had big crops before. notably in
the boom year of 1906. though the to-