544 



The relatively high temperature of April, with slightly deficient rainfall, gave 

 excellent opportunity for careful preparation of the seed bed for spring crops and for 

 the prosecution of seeding. During May the characteristics which marked the 

 season began to be felt. With but two exceptions, trifling in their nature, there wiia 

 a marked deficiency in temperature in every district in the country, while the rain- 

 fall was almost as generally below the usual supply for the month. Conditions 

 very similar prevailed during the succeeding months of June, July, and August, 

 with the exception that June was marked by a generally euflScient supply of rain- 

 fall. * * » The month of September, however, so far as temperature was con- 

 cerned, was a complete reversal of the previous record of the season. The tempera- 

 ture rose very high, and as it was accompanied with less than the usual rainfall, it 

 gave a month of hot forcing weather, crowding late crops to ripening and compen- 

 sating for the somewhat unfavorable character of tlie previous portion of the sea- 

 son. This compensation was noticeably marked in the great corn belt. » • * 



[A comparison of the meteorological peculiarities of 1890 and 1891 shows that] the 

 condition of corn on the first of July was practically identical in the 2 years. It 

 is always good at that date unless cold and wet spring weather has interfered with 

 planting, germination, and early growth. Though maize can endure more heat and 

 drouth than most other agricultural plants, the danger of long-continued absence 

 of rainfall, especially in July and August, the season of development for this crop, 

 is the greatest to which it is exposed. Note the sudden decline of condition in 1890, 

 due mainly to drouth, as indicated by the report of the first of August. The August 

 weather intensified the injury, whih' the favorable influences of September at least 

 prevented further decline and led to sliglitly more hopeful views in the formulation 

 of tlie local estimates of October. The record of 1891, in sharp contrast to that of 

 1890, commencing with quite moderate evidence of early growth, showed that the 

 cro)) had endured the ordeal of d<li<i( iit moisture and the fervent suns of July with u 

 lowering of only two points, after whicli a steady im]>rovcment continued to Octo- 

 ber, and later through the autiimn season so important in drying the grain and per- 

 fecting its quality. This has advanced a crop of medium status, in its germiuation 

 and stalk growth, to a production above the average, or 27 bushels per acre, not the 

 largest yield known, but one not often exceeded for the entire breadth. * » • 



A noticeable and unusual peculiarity of the year is the almost universal occur- 

 rence of mediimi or large production. Ordinarily, a large yield of one crop is ofi'set 

 by a diiuiuished product of another. The summer crops may be generally good, and 

 the winter grains and grasses seriously injured by the severity of the winter. 



