Again, Bumper

Disheartening to the Federal Farm Board were figures on the 1931 winter wheat crop, issued last week by the Department of Agriculture. Instead of reduced production, another bumper harvest was in prospect for the kind of wheat that makes up two-thirds of the whole crop. As estimated by Government crop reporters on May 1, winter wheat would produce this year 652,902,000 bu. or 48,000,000 bu. more than last year and 105,000,000 bu. above the five-year average. The condition of the crop was 90% normal, a figure unequalled in a dozen years. Though the acreage sown last autumn (41,993,000) was a trifle less than the autumn before, the acreage harvested (40,432,000) will be considerably larger than last year because of the small abandonment of planted fields.

The prospective increase in winter wheat will more than wipe out the slight reductions in spring wheat plantings reported last month (TIME, April 6). Plainly in the making was another thumping big wheat surplus to be piled on top of the 250,000,000 bu. of 1930 being carried by the Federal Farm Board.

Fortnight ago the Board began closing out its stabilization of the futures market by accepting final deliveries. In one day it took 36,000,000 bu. from contractors, paying them more than $27,000,000 cash. What was described as the biggest single one-day wheat transaction occurred at Minneapolis where the Government took 23,000,000 bu. for $18,000,000. Other big deliveries were made in Chicago, Omaha, Kansas City.

At the International Wheat Conference opening in London this week to deal with world surpluses, the U. S. will be officially represented by Samuel McKel-vie, wheat member of the Federal Farm Board, and Nils Andreas Olsen, chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics.

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