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Critical Period of Crops

a period in the growth of plants at which certain meteorological conditions are petigations by Prof. Smith of the U. S. Weather Bureau have shown that the success of the Ohio corn crop is dependent principally on the July rainfall of the State. A five-inch rainfall as compared with one of less than three inches has been found to make an average difference of 27,000,000 bushels in the Ohio Oklahoma, and Texas. Co-operative orn crop, while it is estimated that the marketing through farmers' associations is carried on in every section of the United States, although most extensively (before 1921 especially) in California and the North Central States. In 1919 511,383 farms reported sales through associations, this number constituting almost 8 per cent of all the farms in the country. The total amount of sales thus made was $721,983,639, and of this amount almost $600,000,000 was in the Pacific and North Central States, California leading all other States with a total of $127,990,981. The second State in total sales was Minnesota with $82,- 760,459 worth of farm products sold through marketing associations and with 43.9 per cent of all the farms of the State included in such marketing. The most important crops covered in these reports were grain, milk and cream, fruits, and truck crops. During 1921, however, cooperative marketing extended to the South, particularly to the cotton and tobacco States. The Virginia Tobacco Growers' Co-operative Association was "corn belt" as a whole is affected to the extent of 500,000,000 bushels by a difference of one inch in the rainfall of the critical period. The practical advantage of understanding the critical periods of plants in regard to moisture is most apparent in the case of artificially irrigated crops, but other applications the principle have been made by combining the estimates of critical periods with knowledge derived from general climatic statistics.