No. 102 March 1, 1934
INDIANA
CROPS AND LIVESTOCK
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
DIVISION OF CROP AND LIVESTOCK ESTIMATES
CO-OPERATING WITH
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS
WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA
INDIANA
On reporters' farms 68.6 percent of the cows were being milked on the
first of March. The production per cow milked was 16.9 pounds compared
with 17.0 last month and 18.7 a year ago.
On farms reporting less than 400 hens and pullets 32.4 per cent of the
hens were laying compared with 27.8 per cent last month and 37.6 a year
ago. The average number of hens and pullets of laying age was 117 this
month, 112 last month and 112 a year ago.
UNITED STATES
The reported planting intentions have been analyzed and interpreted to
a potential harvest-acreage base assuming that the growers' planting intentions for 1934 will bear somewhat similar relationship to the acreage eventually harvested as has prevailed in the past. In other words, the adjustments may be said to allow for average influence of difficulties at planting
time, loss of planted acreage from various causes and similar exigencies.
Assuming only the usual difficulties at planting time and no more than
the usual changes in plans or abandonment of acreage planted, the reported
intentions indicate that the acreage of corn will be decreased 10 percent
from the acreage harvested last year and tobacco nearly 26 percent. The
prospective spring wheat and rice acreages, as calculated by states, show
nominal reductions for the United States of between two and four percent.
The crops of which farmers plan to harvest an increased acreage include
oats, with an intended increase of nearly 6 per cent, barley nearly 18 percent, flax seed 21 percent, grain sorghums and potatoes 7 percent, beans 16
percent, peanuts 4 percent, soybeans 11 percent, cowpeas 10 percent, and
hay less than one percent. These increases are in comparison with the low
crop acreages harvested last season. Even with these expected increases
over last year the acreages of oats, flaxseed and peanuts would still be substantially below the acreages harvested in 1931 and 1932.
Combining the indicated acreages of these crops and adding present
indications for winter wheat and rye the prospects are for a total acreage
of main crops, excluding cotton, about 1 percent greater than was actually
harvested last season, but about 6 percent below the average acreage of
these crops harvested during the five years 1928-1932.
In using these March 1 reports allowance should be made for the fact
that crop acreage reduction programs are still in progress and plantings
may differ more from March 1 intentions than in ordinary years. Furthermore, in a considerable section of the Great Plains area the ground is at
present exceedingly dry and both the acreage that will be planted and the
subsequent abandonment are very uncertain. Spring sowings also depend
in part on the extent to which winter grains are winter-killed and this could
not be predicted accurately on March 1. On the whole, however, considering the cotton reduction campaign, the reported plans of farmers with regard
to other crops, the soil moisture and irrigation water supply in the western
half of the country and the injury to fruit and other crops from the severe
winter in the Northeast, the present prospects are for a crop output somewhat above the very low output of last season, but below production in any
other recent year.