Near the Bottom

The U.S. citizen used to eat his food and talk about other things. Last week he was still well fed, but he had begun to talk of little else but food.

He had plenty of conversation-making news, mostly bad:

> Out came a pessimistic crop report from the Department of Agriculture. Under weeks of spring rains, said the report, a wide 1,500-mile swath curving from Oklahoma to Michigan and northern New York--one-quarter of all U.S. crop acreage --was now drenched. Some 4,000,000 acres had been flooded and knocked out of production for weeks. Farther west, in southwestern Kansas, South Dakota and the great pasture lands from Texas to southern Colorado, there was drought. Over the nation, crop prospects were the poorest in three years--result of the most unseasonable spring in years.

Food Czar Chester C. Davis hurriedly pointed out that the report did not carry acreage figures, thus gave no true basis for estimating the year's harvest. He prophesied: 1943 food production may yet match 1942's whopping output.

> Total wheat production is estimated at only 730,524,000 bushels, down a whopping 26% under last year. Likewise down is the estimated production of oats (by 14%); barley (13%); rye (41%); peaches (32%); pears (21%); cherries (15%) and commercial truck crops (13%).

> Production of early potatoes is up a whacking 22%, promising at least a temporary end to the pinch. Likewise up is production of citrus fruits.

> Best showing of all was in egg production, which hit an alltime high for the month of May. U.S. hens laid 6,506,000,000 eggs, 13% above May of '42 and 37% above the ten-year average.

> Sixty carloads of potatoes shipped to Manhattan from the south to ease the shortage rotted on the way because the Interstate Commerce Commission, backed by ODT, banned the use of refrigerating ice. All the ice, said ICC, was needed to ship food to southern Army camps. After the damage was done, ice was found for future shipments.

> Spinach was being dumped, left to rot, forecasting what will come when seasonal fresh vegetables, abetted by thousands of Victory gardens, glut the market. The outlook for commercial canners is gloomy. Reported the American Institute of Food Distribution in Manhattan: canneries, unable to get help with the low pay the wage freeze caught them with, have closed in Maryland, Texas, Indiana and New York. Canneries in Washington, Oregon and many another state are threatening to close.

> Aware of the squeeze on canners, New York's Governor Thomas E. Dewey allotted $200,000 to spread instructions on home canning throughout the state to preserve a maximum amount of food. Also before Governor Dewey was the report of his Emergency Food Commission. Gist of the report: the nation must shift from a meat to a grain diet, must stretch its grain crops to the last ounce by feeding them directly to people instead of to livestock to be converted to meat. (The average hog takes seven pounds of corn to produce one pound of table pork.)

The nation no longer needed to be told it must give up meat. In many sections, it had already had sharp, temporary famines. Last week's crowning blow came when the War Food Administration commandeered 45% of all beef for the armed services and for Lend-Lease.

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