Imperial Valley press., 1913-10-06
Haskin Letters
Moisture and Crops
(By Frederic n. Hasklns)

I
as dry weather. Wet weather has
sometimes produced crop failures, and
cold weather occasionally is respon-
sible for deficient food supplies, but,
as a rule, the farmer finds drought
the worst enemy that CAN come be-
tween him and the growing food sup
ply.
| The major portion of the food of
the world always will come from the
northern hemisphere, not only because
1t contains much greater proper
ton or arabic land, but also because it
has a greater amount of rainfall. 1t
is estimated that the average amount
of rain falling in the northern hem
isphere is at least one-fourth greater
than that falling in the southern hem
isphere.
One can scarcely realize that his
food supply is largely dependent upon
the moisture that is lifted up into the
skies from the seas of the antipodes,
and carried by friendly winds to our
latitude. Yet it is fact well known
to meteorologists that the water car
rying winds from the southern seas
make possible millions of tons of food
that we would not get if we had TO
depend solely upon our own hemis-
phere for our supply of moisture.
1t is estimated that the average
rainfall of the earth amounts to
"A inches. 1t varies from 48 1-2 feet
in the region south of the Brahma
Pootra Valley, to almost nothing on
the Sahara Desert. The average is
highest at the equator and lowest in
the polar regions. 1t is beyond the
human mind to conceive the vastneSs
of the work of the worlds great pump
and water carrier-the sun and wind.
A mathematician has calculated that
the annual amount of water taken out
of the sea by the sun approXimates
eighty-fve trillion tons. In other
words, it would be sufficient to fill a
lake with an area equal to that part
of the United States east of the Mis-
sissippi river to a depth of 40 miles.
To express it in yet another way, the
average rainfall per acre throughout
the world approximates 2700 tons a
year.
Where there is less than twenty
inches of rainfall a year the region
is said to be semi-arid, until it drops
down to ten inches of rain, where
desert conditions prevail. About the
| highest known monetary rainfall was
the record made some years ago in
India, where at one place it rained 80
inches in a single hour. There have
been innumerable occasions where a
thousand tons of water to the acre
have fallen in an hour.
The energy of the sun, utilized in
the evaporation of water, is past
|
ness may be CLEANED from the state
ment that the heat given off by the
Gulf Stream is sufficient to drive 400,-
100000 ships like the Lusitania. The
heat given off by the Gulf Stream is
only an unimaginably small fraction
of that which the sun sends to the
earth in its process of pumping up
water to irrigate the habitations of
man.
There is a general and widespread
belief that climatic changes occur
within a few generations at most, and
even within ten recollection of living
men. Some attribute the decline of
great famines to a greater percentage
of seasonable weather. But, as mat
ter Of fact, transportation has solved
the problem. The United States is so
large that there is never time when
"a universal shortage is experienced,
and the rapid methods of interchang-
ing commodities makes it possible for
one community to meet the needs of
another When one looks over the
production statistics of the depart
ment of agriculture he may discover
that in one year there was shortage
Of corn and in another year a short
age of wheat, but the total produc-
tion of the farms Of the country has
seldom varied more than 5 per cent at
the most. New methods of distribu-
ton are responsible for the freedom
Of the population of civilized countries
today from famine conditions.
The assertion frequently made is
that winters formerly were colder
than they are today, and that sum-
mers were hotter, that fewer SHOWS
now fall, and that greater floods are
experienced. These impressions find
support in the changes Of the distri-
button Of crops and the days Of har-