Business & Finance: Agricultural Improvement

The reason for the remarkable cessation of complaint by farmers is due not so much to the fact that Congress is not yet in session, as to a real improvement in agricultural production and prices. Preliminary estimates of the Department of Agriculture indicate that the current crop of corn, potatoes, apples and tobacco is better than the five-year average.

Corn has been especially profitable. Current prices are very high, and the 1923 crop is estimated at 3,029,192,000 bushels—which is 140,000,000 bushels more than the crop of last year. Its quality, owing to frost damage, is not quite so good, and the merchantable quantity is estimated at 79.4% compared with 85% in 1922. At Nov. 1 farm prices, the corn crop is worth more than $2,500,000,000.

Potatoes have run to an estimated total crop of 416,722,000 bushels, or 35,000,000 more than last year. The tobacco crop is forecast at 1,436,738,000 pounds, which is 112,000,000 pounds more than the 1922 crop, and is the fourth largest crop ever raised.

Other crops were estimated as follows: wheat, 781,737,000 bushels; oats, 1,302,453,000 bushels; barley, 199,251,000. bushels; hay, 102,914,000 tons; flax seed, 19,343,000 bushels; rice, 32,737,000 bushels; peaches, 45,555,000 bushels; apples, 193,855,000 bushels; sweet potatoes, 97,429,000 bushels; sugar beets, 6,667,000 tons.

The price index of all crops on Nov. 1 was 21.2% more than a year ago, although 23.8% under the average for 1918-1922.