Crop Reports, How and Why Compiled. 457 



It is as matters of record that the crop reports finally become most 

 valuable. A comparison of any crop for a term of years is always 

 interesting, especially now when so much attention is being given to 

 the price of food products and to a study of the relation existing be- 

 tween supply and demand. 



If the corn crop for ten years is noted it will be seen that the 

 average yield for the State for that period of time was 28.8 bushels 

 per acre, but that the yield in 1908 was only 26 bushels and in 1909 

 only 27.4 bushels. The average annual State yield in bushels for the 

 ten-year period is 202.800,185, but in 1908 the total yield was only 

 173,573,422, and in 1909 it was 197,714,946— both years being below the 

 decade average in yield per acre and total output. The lowest average 

 yield per acre was, in 1901 — the drought year — when the records show 

 9.9 bushels as the State average. The next year all records were 

 broken, with an average of exactly 40 bushels — eight barrels — per acre, 

 for the entire State. 



The wheat reports for eight years show the average State yield per 

 acre to have been 13.7 bushels, and the average annual output 31,699,739 

 bushels. In 1908 the State yield was only 10.7 bushels per acre, con- 

 siderably below the eight-year average, while in 1909 it was 15.3 bushels, 

 or 1.6 bushels above. But not for three years has Missouri's total out- 

 put of wheat equaled the eight-year average. The figures are 28,830,- 

 014 bushels in 1907 ; 20,684,819 in 1908, and 27,502,879 in 1909. 



AYhen it is remembered that during the last eight or ten years 

 the State's population has greatly increased, these figures, which not 

 only do not show an increase in the output of wheat and com but for 

 the last two years, indicate a material decrease, we find, if not food to 

 appease hunger, at least, ''food for sober study." Com, while it does 

 not enter so directly into human foodstuffs as does wheat, is yet the 

 principal ration for fattening stock. Most Missouri farmers '"market 

 their com on foot." 



Thus it will be seen that it is the duty of the "farmers' book- 

 I'jeeper" to record unpleasant facts as well as pleasant ones. He must 

 write down the losses as well as the profits. He must be more than a 

 painter of rose-hued pictures. 



