Word: drought
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Into the powdery trough of the Southwest plains in recent weeks have come sporadic showers and light snows. To the dry-skinned farmers and ranchers who have been sitting out a searing drought for as long as eight years, the kiss of moisture on the crumbling land stirred a pulse-pounding flicker of hope; now, perhaps, seasonal rains would soak the ravaged soil, renew the empty springs. Last week the hoped-for moisture came. But it was a bitter draught...
MEAT-PRICE RISE is coming because 1957 production will drop 2% to 3% below last year's record 28 billion Ibs. Southwest drought has cut into cattle supply and hog farmers are marketing fewer porkers to avoid last year's glut. Chicago wholesale prices: beef, 7% to 16% higher than this time last year; pork, up 37% ; lamb...
...building spree. But planning was poor; there was often a lack of raw materials, modern machines and technical know-how to keep the showplace plants running at planned capacity. Power also is short. Spain depends on hydroelectric power for three-quarters of its supply, and last year's drought held output to a low 13.75 billion kwh. Faced with such bottlenecks, the Pegaso factories have turned out only 4,000 heavy-duty trucks since 1947, although capacity is 3,000 a year. Shortages of iron ore, coal and electricity cut last year's steel output...
Chill winds whipped across Kansas last week, smearing drought-mulched dust across the sky in dismal yellows. But things were not quite so grim as they looked. In Emporia, Farmer Robert George, 50-year-old bachelor, was teased by his kin for getting married, they said, on "Government rent." Ex-servicemen heading for the state V.F.W. convention joked about the wheat crop they had "already harvested." Some vacation-minded farmers counted their "Florida money." One and all, they were talking about the payments they get from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's soil bank for taking land...
Though this federal program, plus the drought, has helped to cut the state's wheat acreage in half (present crop: 6,700,000 acres), it has also speeded up a three-year rise in farmland values, and given smart operators a new way to make money. In Morris County (county seat: Council Grove), Lawyer Marlin Brown and a partner got 5½% insurance-company loans to buy eight farms, 1,500 acres, for an average $62.50 an acre. They plan to farm only the best 200 acres, but can put 771 of the poorer acres into the soil bank...