AMERICA’S PLIGHT.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13310, 17 July 1936, Page 5

AMERICA’S PLIGHT.

COLOSSAL DROUGHT DAMAGE.

AREA LARGER THAN N.Z. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. WASHINGTON,‘"JuIy 16. The United States Government’s preliminary survey of the drought damage throughout the nation shows that an area equal to Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Connecticut combined, formerly' good farm land, is now useless for the cultivation of crops because of gully erosion. Out of 1,003,000,000 acres observed 50,000,000 acres are thus affected in addition to the top soil washed from 125,000,000 more acres and 100*000,000 acres suffering from a similar trend. The Weather Bureau states that* the drought’s back is broken. The forecasts are for scattered showers and generally cooler weather except in Northern Nebraska and Kansas, where rises in the temperature are expected. Meanwhile wheat prices have been forced upward five cents, at Kansas City and 44 cents, at Chicago with reports that millers are buying all available wheat. Another stimulus was a report that the Canadian crop is deteriorating rapidly.

To give some idea, of the colossal scale of the drought damage in the United States it is only necessary to say that the total area of New Zealand is 66,390,262 acres, of which about _44,000,000 are in occupation, excluding borough areas and native land held on the communal system..