Business: TIME CLOCK, may 10, 1954

CORN FARMERS are looking for another bumper crop and lower prices this fall despite government attempts to cut down surpluses. Many farmers whose wheat and cotton plantings were cut by quotas increased corn planting to the point where 1954’s acreage will be almost as high as last year’s 81,037,000 acres. The estimated crop of 3.1 billion bu. will be on top of the present 750 million bu. carryover.

UNIVAC, Remington Rand’s big $1,000,000 electronic brain, is going into the insurance business. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. is installing one of the machines at its Manhattan home office to work five days a week assembling and analyzing basic actuarial statistics ordinarily handled by clerks, thus releasing them for other jobs.

FORD OF CANADA has done even better than its U.S. big brother so far in 1954. It has not only pushed ahead of Canadian General Motors in the low-priced field, but also in percentage of the total auto market. Totals: Ford, 53,508 cars and trucks, up 37% to 40.9% of the market; G.M., 50,945 cars and trucks, down 18% to 40.5% of the market.

NICKEL PRODUCTION will soon get a healthy boost. Cleveland’s M. A. Hanna Co. (bossed by George Humphrey until he became Treasury Secretary) will start producing the critical metal in July at a rate which will reach 13,720,000 Ibs. a year by 1956 (eleven times present U.S. production) in a new $20 million plant at Riddle, Ore.

PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD is joining the trend to piggyback truck trailers (TIME, Sept. 21). In June the Pennsy will put 90 special, truck-carrying flatcars into service between New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Chicago. It has ordered 200 more for August delivery.

FARM SURPLUSES, now approaching the $7 billion mark, will probably be cut under a new disposal program soon to be announced by the Administration. Idea is to set up a special office to barter food for commodities and services abroad. On surplus butter, prices to U.S. and foreign consumers would be cut 15% to 25% below current market levels, then slowly boosted as the surplus dwindles.

RED MOTOR SCOOTERS were rushed into production in East Germany to compete with West German models made by ex-Aircraft Designer Messerschmitt, but have proved to be flops. First three slapped together for the East Zone May Day celebration all broke down within a few hundred yards on their initial test runs, were dropped from the big parade.

US. JET FIGHTERS are being -equipped with new 20-mm. cannon that can fire explosive shells faster than the standard (1,200 rounds per min.) .50-cal. machine gun. The new weapon, which fires cartridges by electricity instead of the usual mechanical hammer, was developed by Ford and Illinois Institute of Technology engineers from World War II German plans, is now being mass-produced by General Motors’ Pontiac Division.

TEXAS CO. is planning a billion-dollar expansion program over the next five years to keep pace with steadily increasing world oil consumption. In 1954 alone, Texaco will spend a record $275 million to look for new oil to boost its oil reserves (currently 2 billion bbls.) and increase production.

FLORIDA may soon become the scene of large scale titanium operations. Geologists report rich deposits along Florida’s Gulf Coast, and Chicago’s big (1953 sales: $316 million) Crane Co., maker of valves and aircraft accessories, has formed a new subsidiary, Heavy Minerals Inc., to dredge the mineral-rich sand from about 50,000 acres of beachfront stretching along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.