Recapitulation

The drought in the valleys of the Ohio, Potomac and lower Mississippi ceased to be front page news as soon as President Hoover had held his White House conferences and told the States affected how to set up relief machinery without U. S. Treasury aid (TIME, Aug. 18). The mild public hysteria that had marked official action and pronouncements subsided. But still little or no rain fell over the blighted areas of Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Last week as the drought passed into its fifth month Government officials took fresh stock of the conditions it had produced. Results of their observations:

Relief. A total of 703 counties in 19 States have been certified by the Department of Agriculture as beneficiaries of freight rate reductions on livestock feed. The American Railway Association reported that 3,733 carloads of hay and mill feed had been shipped into the stricken counties at the emergency rate. In a few States highway construction was accelerated but in others no money was available for such extra work In Iowa and Nebraska crop conditions were comparatively good and no farm credits were required.

Weather. Despite scattered showers August failed to produce sufficient rainfall to break the drought as it did in 1901. Weather Bureau statistics indicated that the 1930 drought in duration and area was worse than the record-breaker of 29 years ago.*

Feed. Secretary of Agriculture Hyde last week reviewed this problem: "The feed shortage is developing into a national rather than a local problem. The situation has become more critical in the areas first affected and new areas to the north have suffered. . . . The feed supply is now shorter than in any year since 1901. . . ."

Corn. Five-year average U. S. corn production: 2,700,000,000 bu. For July 1 the Department of Agriculture estimated the U. S. crop at 2,800,000,000 bu. A month later the drought had reduced this estimate to 2,200,000,000 bu. This week the Department prepared to issue its Sept. 1 estimates. Private estimators figured that the crop will then show about 1,950,000,000 bu. Declared Secretary Hyde last week: "As prospects have declined markedly since Aug. 1, the total deficit at this time (Sept. 1) is no doubt considerably larger." Secretary Hyde continued to urge farmers to feed the wheat surplus to their stock to make up for the corn shortage, declared that the U. S. was now on "domestic basis" for all grains.

Farm Incomes. The drought, economists agreed, will reduce individual incomes among husbandmen whose crops had been burned out, possibly produce severe hardship in large areas, but will proportionately benefit others who will get higher prices for their produce as a result of shortages. From the perspective of New York and Chicago, the 1930 farm income, while geographically uneven, appeared likely to average about the same as in previous years. At Des Moines fortnight ago Chairman Alexander Legge of the Federal Farm Board declared:

"While the damage has been serious [along] the Ohio river, in parts of the Rocky Mountain region, in Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and certain of the southern states, the drought has not been serious in the upper Mississippi and Missouri valleys. . . .

"The great agricultural region of the nation, of which Iowa is the center, will enjoy almost, if not fully as good or better farm income this year than in 1929. . . . To these states of the upper Mississippi valley the drought will be actually a factor in bringing higher prices and higher incomes. . . . The fact that the 1930 corn crop probably will be not greater than 2,000,000,000 bu. will not likely lessen the farmers' income. The smallest corn crop in the last ten years had the greatest value."

* A majority of U. S. clergymen canvassed by the Christian Century last week doubted the efficacy of prayers for rain. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick: "No imaginable connection exists between a man's inward spiritual attitude and a rain storm." Dr. W. P. Lemon of Minneapolis: ''Praying for rain is an attempt to involve God in a co-operative scheme to maintain present American living standards. It's too much like asking God to send a hurricane to complete a wrecking job."

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