724 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Potatoes deteriorated rapidly after the middle of July and the Septem- 

 ber rains came too late for them to rally. The average yield, 43 bushels 

 per acre, is among the lower records, though not the lowest. Scarcely a 

 county in Iowa produced enough potatoes for its own use and many were 

 shipped in. 



Cloudy, rainy weather in October delayed the drying and maturing of 

 corn so that at the close of the month very little had been cribbed. What 

 had promised an early harvest of the corn crop developed into a late 

 unfavorable season. November was not very favorable either, so that 

 on December 1, 11 per cent of the corn remained in the field as compared 

 with 9 per cent in 1918. Most of the unhusked corn is in the southern half 

 of the State and unfortunately much of it was blown down on the ground 

 by the windstorm of November 10 and was covered by deep snow in late 

 November and early December. Nearly 8 per cent of the corn was 

 "hogged down." The average price per bushel paid for husking was 8 

 cents. 



General frosts and freezing temperature held off till October 11. Only 

 2 per cent of the corn, that which was late planted or replanted, was 

 soft or immature. 



The season was generally unfavorable for sugar beets. Rainy weather 

 late in May and early in June interfered with planting, thinning and 

 weeding the beets, so that about 2,000 acres were abandoned. Much of 

 the remaining acreage was of necessity planted late to the smaller, more 

 rapidly maturing varieties which reduced the tonnage produced. De- 

 ficient precipitation in the beet raising counties of the north-central por- 

 tion of the State in August arrested growth. In order to get sugar into 

 the beets it is necessary to have moderate frost followed by sunshiny 

 days. The first frost, October 11, destroyed 75 per cent of the foliage. 

 The cloudy, rainy days that prevailed from late September through Octo- 

 ber induced new growth instead of maturity, so there was very little 

 chance for the development of sugar. The output of sugar was only 

 about two-thirds that of last year, though the acreage harvested was 

 somewhat larger. 



Dry, hard soil till the rains of late September, delayed the seeding 

 of winter wheat till an unusually late date, yet on 92 per cent of the 

 acreage seeded the wheat made good growth and became well estab- 

 lished; 7 per cent germinated but made very little showing above ground; 

 and only 1 per cent did not germinate up to the beginning of winter. 

 A generous snow covering toward the close of November preceded a 

 glaze storm that otherwise might have proved disastrous to the wheat, 

 and it is believed to be entering the winter in very good condition. The 

 percentage condition reported by the U. S. Bureau of Crop Estimates on 

 December 1 in this State was 91. Preliminary estimates of the acreage 

 seeded in the fall of 1919 place it at 458,000 as compared with 954,000 

 in the fall of 1918, or about 48 per cent. 



Balletin No. 1, April 8, 1919 — 



The winter of 1918-19 was the mildest of the 29 winters Since the Iowa 

 Weather and Crop Service was organized and averaged 2.1 degrees warmer 

 than the record winter of 1907-08. Heavy rains in October and November 



