THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART XII. 713 



The entries in all departments with the one exception of swine were 

 below the average in numbers. 



Crops of the county were below the average. Much grain was damaged 

 while in the shock, by the heavy rains which made it impossible to thresh. 

 The yield of oats was thirty bushels to the acre and of poor quality. The 

 early frosts caught the corn before it was matured, it being very back- 

 ward because of the excessive rains of the late summer. The yield was 

 fair but with many soft ears. Potatoes were fairly good. 



Grundy county is exclusively a farming section, the soil being a black 

 loam and from one to three feet in depth. Land is selling as high as 

 $112 per acre. 



GUTHRIE COUNTY 



A. H. Grisell. 

 The crop season of 1902 in this locality was one of unusual conditions. 



The fields were in the finest possible condition for early sowing and 

 planting. Wheat and oats were sown in good season. The cool dry weather 

 of April and the early part of May prevented early or rapid germination 

 and growth. Later in the season these crops made fine growth and gave 

 promise of a large yield. There was a large planting of early potatoes and 

 a large yield of the early planted crop. Corn was generally planted in 

 good season, and was never planted with the ground in better condition. 

 The latter part of May and the early part of June were unusually favorable 

 for its cultivation and the crop gave abundant promise. Pasturage started 

 late but through the summer and down to the present it has been un- 

 usually abundant. The meadows promised a large yield. 



The fruit trees except peaches were laden with bloom. The summer 



and fall varieties of apples produced a large crop, the fruit being 

 unusually large and of fine quality. Plums produced well. Some rotted 

 on the trees before ripening, but the crop was large. Melons and grapes 

 were of poor quality owing to the long continued wet cool weather through 

 their maturing period. 



The six months including April and September furnished unusually 

 heavy rain fall. The signal service under the charge of W. F. Brann 

 reports the rainfall for the six months as follows: April, .90 inches; May, 

 3.30 inches; June, 6.99 inches; July, 9.27 inches; August, 7.21 inches; Sep- 

 tember, 5.49 inches; a total for the six months of 34.88 inches. The three 

 months of the hay and grain harvest furnishing 24.17 inches, upwards of 

 two feet of water. These unusual floods worked great damage and loss to 

 the hay and small grain crops. That period being not only unusually wet 

 but also abnormally cool prevented the early maturity of the corn crop 

 which suffered on the low lands serious damage from the frosts of Sep- 

 tember 12 and 13. 



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