STATE OF BUSINESS: Facts & Figures, Jun. 27, 1949

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Wheat Deal. Under pressure of the second largest wheat crop on record, the U.S. ratified the international wheat agreement (TIME, April 4), which gives U.S. farmers an annual export market of 168 million bushels for four years. The wheat pact, which will cost taxpayers an estimated $84 million in subsidies to farmers for the first year's exports (because export prices will be lower than domestic support prices), goes into effect July 1.

Good Guinness. Because currency restrictions make U.S. hops hard to get, Arthur Guinness Son & Co., Ltd., famed Irish brewers ("Guinness is good for you"), bought a Long Island City plant, their first in the U.S. In it, Guinness, which has been importing U.S. hops, started brewing stout of "the same flavor and quality as brewed in Ireland" for the U.S. market.

Lucky Joe. In the Rio Grande cotton country, the first bolls of the new crop were ripe and the annual "first bale" race was on. Near Me Allen, Tex., young (27) Joe Acosta directed the 150 pickers on the 1,600 acres he tenant-farms, while he kept in touch with the nearby cotton gin, checking on his rivals. When Acosta had enough, he rushed the cotton into town to be ginned, piled the 512-lb. bale aboard a pick-up truck and raced 350 miles to the Houston Cotton Exchange in 6½ hours. For bringing in the first bale of the season, Joe got $1,325 in prize money, and another $1,203, a record, when his bale was auctioned off at the exchange.

Dime-a-Dose. In Madison, Tenn., Spray-a-Tan, Inc. started production of a coin-operated machine, invented by William H. Hayes and William B. Jakes Jr., designed to take the sand and rubbing out of suntan oiling. For a dime, a sunbather can step up to an aluminum cabinet (see cut) and spray himself with oil for 60 seconds. The price: $200 a machine and $7 a gallon of oil.