Evening star., 1939-06-08
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study .
BIZ Thomas r. Henri.

By Thomas Il. Henry.
A crop predicting machine, which
eventually may replace the 800 900 crop
reporters who serve the Department OF
Agriculture in all parts of the Nation,
now is being tested by the Bureau of
Agricultural Economics.
Over the dusty backroads of Okla
homa and Kansas this week three men
are driving with curious contraptions
on the dashboards of their cars. These
are 'cropmeters." Such a device con-
sists to the eye of double row of IL
pushbuttons, wired to the speedometer
The car passes the beginning of a
wheat field on the right side of the
road. The driver pushes button in
the upper row marked wheat" A
meter begins to register. Wheat ap-
pears on the opposite side of the road
He pushes the wheat button" in the
lower row. Wheat gives way to oats on
the right. In the upper row he pushes
an "oats" button. Automatically the
wheat meter stops and the oats meter
starts. Over three roads north and
south and three east and west in each
OF the nine winter wheat crop dis
tricts in the two States the cars travel,
automatically calculating the land
planted to various crops
After passing each two miles of wheat
field a car stops. The driver gets out
and consults a table. He finds a GER
tain number. 1t is the same thing, crop
reporting experts say, as having thrown
dice for the same number, only the
dice have all been thrown beforehand.
He advances measured Is PAGES into
the field. Then he advances the num-
Der OF PAGES designated by the number he
has drawn. Then he throws wire
hoop over an area of wheat about a
yard in radius. Over this area he
plucks ripening wheat heads at ran
dom. The same procedure is repeated
for every two miles of wheat. For each
sampling the driver carefully records
the location
The wheat heads so gathered are
sent to the Kansas State Agricultural
College at Manhattan, Kans, where
they are weighed and subjected to chem
ical tests. There a method, still in
the experimental stage, has been worked
out for estimating from small amount
the weight per bushel of the grain to
be harvested a couple of weeks hence
IN that particular area. The weight
of wheat varies from 40 to more than
90 pounds per bushel. This is an i'm
portant element in the price Chemi-
cal tests are also made to determine
the amount of protein in the grain.
This determines its value for bread and
cake making. Some wheats are far
richer than others. Canadian wheat,
on the average, runs much higher than
American wheat on the average. In
the past 1t has been necessary to i'm
port grain from across the border to
mix with the native product in order
to prepare the highest grades of flour.
Experts of the Bureau of Agricultural
Economics believe that it will be pos
sibie to find selected American wheat
areas before the harvest with such
high protein content that this i'm
portation can be greatly curtailed.
From the winter wheat belt the ma
chimes will be taken northward into
the spring wheat area. In a prelimi-
nary experiment last year all of Eastern
North Dakota was covered The pre-
dlctlons, checked against the actual
yield, showed a very high accuracy.
The work, it is stressed, still is in a
highly experimental stage. Within a
lew years it is hoped to predict a grain
or cotton crop with high degree Of
accuracy as much as a month before
harvest
Three factors, according to DR.. C. F.
Sarle Of the Bureau of Agricultural Eco
nomics, who formulated the project,
have been found to have a very high
correlation with yield-height of the
stalks, number of heads on a stalk.
and length of the heads
All crop estimating methods in the
past, he stresses, have had a large
element of human error. In spite of
this millions are gambled in the grain
markets on their accuracy. A crop re-
porter in certain district looks over
the condition of the fields at different
periods in the progress of the crop
and makes as good guess" as pos
sible on the probable yield. He may
be an optimist or pessimist The
Department of Agriculture has assumed
that over an entire crop region the
optimists would balance the pessimists
SO that fair average judgment would
be obtained.
The new method eliminates human
Judgment almost altogether. The ma
chine is neither an optimist nor a
pesslmlss and the surveyor has no
choice but to follow the dictates of
blind chance. Whether the mechanical
method will be better than the guessing
method, Mr.. Sarle stresses, remains to
be seen. From the North Dakota test
1T appears to be much more accurate.
Takes TSSua WIFI,