Word: droughts
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Across the prairie wheatfields, tractor headlights flickered through the night, and the clank of combines filled the still air. As farmers raced to beat late summer hailstorms, a harvest that defied drought, dust storms and the dire predictions of experts was moving in a golden stream last week to Canada's bins and elevators. The new wheat crop, estimated at 340 million bu., will probably be the smallest in four years -down sharply from 1956-57's huge 573.1 million bu. But it is so much better than anyone thought possible in early summer that many a wheat...
What saved the crops was the fact that many farmers wisely retired their dustiest fields to fallow. On their remaining acres, they used new chemical weed killers, planted drought-resistant strains whose roots went down 5 ft. to bring up moisture. By last week the victory was in sight: not only was the yield per acre good, but the wheat itself was rich in protein and sure to command top prices on world markets...
...just as anxious as Canada to cut down wheat stocks. Canadians think they can more than hold their own. Though the U.S. wheat is likely to be cheaper on world markets, its quality is lower, cannot compare to Canada's rich harvest from the drought...
Lobo has already made profits enough this year to satisfy most men. A severe drought in Puerto Rico and a 126-day strike that paralyzed Hawaii's sugar industry prevented both from meeting sugar quotas to the U.S. To make up the shortage, Cuba's sugar quota was boosted three times in five weeks, all of which was money in the bank for Lobo. In no time, he dispatched a Lobo-chartered ship, the largest ever to carry sugar out of Cuba, to the U.S. West Coast with 19,000 tons...
...heat brought drought; the drought brought famine. In Rajasthan state last week men, their crops parched and their cattle killed, were eating slugs, dried grass and flowers. In Bihar 90% of the wells had dried up; rioting broke out among villagers who camped all night at the few wells that still gave water. In Calcutta (top temperature 111°F., the highest since 1924) half the railwaymen refused to work in the heat, created such chaos with train schedules that mobs smashed the offices of stationmasters in protest...