AGRICULTURE: Too Bad, Too Long

For Jay Anderberg, 40, the gavel-pounding auctioneer and co-owner of Miller Livestock Sales Co. in Miller, S. Dak., business this summer has been altogether too good. Since June, Anderberg has sold nearly 5,000 head of cattle per week to packers, feed-lot owners and out-of-state cattlemen, almost five times the average during a normal summer. But business is not normal anywhere in South Dakota this summer. Parched by the worst drought in 42 years, the prairies are yellow and burnt, and at least half of the state's oats, wheat and barley cash crops have been devastated. In all, the drought...