National Affairs: Jardine Report

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The Secretary of Agriculture must deal with crop-years—from sowing-time to harvest-time—rather than with fiscal* years, which, in the U.S., begin and end in the middle of calendar years. Secretary Jardine, reporting on the crop-year 1927-28 and anticipating 1928-29, announced:

That the U.S. farmer's gross income increased somewhat in the past year:

1926-27 income $12,127,000,000

1927-28 income $12,253,000,000

The 1928-29 income should be still larger. Specially well off are dairymen, beefmen, poultrymen, hogmen. Not so well off are grainmen, haymen, tobacco-men, potatomen.

Despite bad weather, yield-per-acre was 3% above average this year, although some 10,000,000 acres of winter wheat were frost-killed and a cold, wet June hampered reseeding.

Acreage of crops harvested was record-breaking. The year's increase exceeded any year since 1918, when farmers planted for war. The Mississippi flood of 1927 caused this sharp difference. The report remarked: "Expansion of acreage is not always desirable, and the expansion this year in the case of certain crops—notably potatoes—was definitely undesirable. Expansion of acreage, however, is at least a mark of confidence in the future of agriculture. The increase was pretty well distributed throughout the country and was divided among cotton, spring wheat, potatoes, and other leading crops. A decline representing a shift to more intensive crops took place in the acreage previously devoted to hay."

The unusually large cotton acreage suffered unusually from boll weevil.

The wheat crop exceeded 900 million bushels for the first time since 1919.

Event-of-the-year was the success of the livestock industry. Cattle prices reached a peak record-breaking for peacetime.