CROPS THREATENED

Taranaki Daily News, 17 April 1935, Page 5

CROPS THREATENED

AMERICAN DUST STORMS VIRTUALLY NATION-WIDE NEW PERIL IN COLD SSAP WHEAT IMPORTS LIKELY By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. Rec. 8.30 p.m. New York, April 15. The effect of tire Middle West dust storms became virtually nation-wide today as a .thin haze was noted over New York, while vast clouds of dust were being swept from the Panhandle section of Texas across New Mexico and Arizona. Meanwhile an unseasonable cold wave is descending from the north-west threatening additional crop damage as the result of frosts. Aviators on New York-Washington commercial lines reported very fine dust clouds at altitudes up to 14,000 feet. One Kansas farmer reported that 700 acres of wheat was completely destroyed. Practically an entire dairy herd died for lack of water.

Drought conditions on the grea.t western plains are reported by the Department of Agriculture to have been even worse on April 1 than on the corresponding date of 1934. Unless there is an improvement the United States may be forced to import wheat in the coming winter.