102 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Favorable weather for work offset the unfavorable labor conditions. 

 Spring work progressed rapidly. Eighty-five per cent of the corn ground 

 was ready for the planter and a little planting had been done by the close 

 of April. Seed corn was scarce and of very low vitality due to the lateness 

 of the crop and the damaging frosts in 1917. Unprecedented efforts of 

 county agents and farmers in seed testing, and cautious delay in planting 

 most of the acreage after the ground was warm and the weather fit, re- 

 sulted in good stand of corn. 



Violent temperature fluctuations, from freezing to 95°, May 1st to 4th, 

 with high southwest winds and low humidities, did further damage to win- 

 ter wheat and grasses. Tornadoes May 9th and 21st covered considerable 

 areas but did little damage to crops. Soil and weather conditions in May 

 were very favorable for germination and growth of corn. 



Heavy rains the first week in June caused considerable damage to corn 

 by erosion and overflow, from Webster and Hamilton Counties southeast to 

 Poweshiek and Johnson Counties. Replanting from this cause was probably 

 not greater than usual for the State as a whole, but because of the large 

 acreage of spring plowed sod, the cut worm damage and consequent re- 

 planting from this cause was unusual. This replanted corn was about all 

 that was caught by the early frosts, September 18-21. The soft corn 

 which is 4 per cent of the crop, is a fairly good indication of the extent of 

 this replanting. Seventeen counties, mostly in the southwest, reported no 

 appreciable amount of soft corn, while the northeast counties reported con- 

 siderable. 



Reports from many hundred crop correspondents on July 1, showed the 

 average condition of corn to be 105 per cent, which has been exceeded but 

 once in 29 years. A hot period about the middle of June with record high 

 temperatures on the 16th was believed to have prematurely ripened oats 

 in the southwestern one-fourth of the State. Such a period is not con- 

 sidered good for any small grain, yet all. small grains finally show yields 

 above normal. Smut affected spring wheat seriously. 



Harvest came on about a week earlier than normal and continued through 

 July under conditions unusually favorable for labor and curing shocked 

 grain, except in the northeast and north-central counties where heavy 

 rains caused delay and damaged the shocked grain. 



During July a marked deficiency in rainfall began to be felt over the 

 south-central and southwest counties, causing the pastures to fail and 

 upland corn to begin firing. The average condition of corn on August 1 

 was 101 per cent. In the next eight days, record breaking high tempera- 

 tures with drouth damaged corn throughout the southwest one-third of the 

 State, amounting to a disaster in some of the southwest counties. In 

 Adams County where the heat and drouth were greatest, the average yield 

 of corn is only 7 bushels per acre, approaching the record low yield of 5 

 bushels per acre in Page County in the historic drouth of 1894. Roughly it 

 may be said that Iowa's corn crop was damaged $5,000,000 per day during 

 this eight-day period. Though it is difficult to assign a damage value to 

 particular days, it seems probable that the damage on three days August 

 4-6, at the climax, was approximately $10,000,000 per day. To save the 

 crop, much of it was cut for fodder and silage. Live stock was put on 



