The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1914-06-05
comics Of the latter may be secured by
addressing the state board OF tax COM
missioners, Olympia"

The most recent aCVlceS as 10 lHe
| condition of the wheat crop this year
fully bear out the earlier ones; indeed,
there are grounds for believing that
the government estimates may be ex-
ceeded. Observers declare that a
combind crop Of spring and winter
wheat, amounting to 500 million
bushels, seems almost a certainty
that is. providing no serious devastat-
| ing agencies get to work, such as
drought, excessive rain in the harvest
| ing period, and black rust. That there
will be a large surplus for export
seems beyond question. That some
grounds exist for a still larger crop
than 900 million bushels has been
epointed out by writer in the New
York Times Annalist. He names as a
possibility a round billion bushels:
1.-THE largest spring wheat yield
ever recorded in this county was in
1912, when the farmers Of the North
west harvested 330,000,0O0 bushels.
The acreage from which that crop was
gathered was not SO large, by con-
siderable margin, as that which has
been seeded this season. Ii 7O,0OO,000
| bushels can be added to the 1912 to-
| tai this year, and the winter crop turns
out as large as now indicated, the bill
|
| been achieved. A crop of that size win
mark a new epoch in the history of
the country's agriculture. 1t has been
made possible by the rapid develop
ment of new farming lands, both in
the Southwest and the Northwest
along with improved methods Of agri-
culture. The winter wheat yields in
Dictated in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and
Missouri, experts who have been
making a close study Of conditions in
those states declare, are in a measure
the result of the e:orts in recent years
to teach farmers to raise crops scienti-
fcally."
Holland" wellknown writer for
The Wall Street Journal, declares that
harvest of this size, which is higher
tina nexperts have ever named" is a
fair possibility. He says:
Recent information tends to con
firm the belief that in the United
States there is to be harvested OF
winter wheat more bushels than the
combined average harvest Of winter
and spring wheat for the past five or
six years. Some weeks must pass be-
fore there can be fairly reasonable
estimate Of the spring wheat harvest
but the information now at hand Justi-
des the hope that unless there be seri-
Gus climatic disturbances this harvest
will be a very large one.
Therefore it is within the range OF
possibilities, even probabilities, that
there will be garnered this year be
tween 9Oo,0OO,00O and 1,000,OC0,000
bushels of wheat. There does not ap-
pear to have been any attempt upon
a nationwide scale TO practise highly
scientific wheat cultivation. There has
been steady Improvement in the cul-
walton of wheat, but not enough fully
to explain the prospect for the 1914
| harvest.
THE experts, Mr.. Hill among them,
have been accustomed to say that in
England wheat is cultivated so as to
yield about thirty bushels an acre, al
| thought the soil of England has been
under cultivation a thousand years Or
more Fourteen bushels an acre have
been the average wheat production in
the United EtateS in recent years. Mr..
Hill believes that the production
should be at least 100 per cent greater
1t must be greater if we are to rely
upon our own soil for wheat, which is
the grain food of highly civilized peo-
pie.
mo one can tell at this time wheth-
| ct lie pIOulSC VI dill OuOILlOuS yIolu
of wheat is due to an ephemeral squirt
or whether it does not point to large
increase in the wheat harvests here
after. Of course climatic conditions
have been favorable, although this is
not believed wholly to explain the
promise of a great increase. This
promised harvest, should the promise
be realized, will be of very beneficial
influence upon our money markets 1t
should provide greater surplus for
expectation than any that we have had
in recent years. 1t should serve con-
siderably to increase our visible trade
balance"
The influence such a crop is likely
to exert on general trade and trans
portation interests is discussed by a
writer in the New York Evening Post,
who raises the question whether this