CROPS: Busy Calendar

Wheat futures last week tumbled to 62¢ a bu., lowest since 1933 and 13¢ below the wheat loan figure (at Chicago) set last month by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace. Corn futures also hit the skids, dropping below 50¢ a bu. for the first time in four years. However, the Department of Agriculture’s official estimate of a 2,566,221,000 bu. 1938 corn crop meant that the harvest (plus the carryover) will be 27,000,000 bu. short of an “excessive supply”; hence there will be no referendum to give farmers an opportunity to get marketing quotas imposed. Third item last week on the Department of Agriculture’s busy calendar was its estimate of an 11,988,000-bale cotton crop, 7,000,000 bales below 1937’s bumper yield, but 700,000 bales above the average unofficial forecasts. Average spot prices fell to 8.35¢ a lb., only eight points above the figure at which cotton loans become mandatory under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938.