 immediately. So here's what the corn looks like shortly after the murder. The early growth stage is when it's sending down roots. Normally, if you receive dry weather then most farmers think that's not a bad deal because it sends roots deeper, and then if you root develop. These were the crop conditions in Illinois as it was already in 1934. I'm going to turn it over to Rick Crone, and he's going to tell you a little bit about his farm. As this group is assembled here, Mr. President, we feel this is a crop section of not necessarily this area, but as a whole of the Midwest, the corn and soybean belt, even some of your southern regions. We feel we've got some of the basically they've come here all in the one. We've got work coming out of this situation that we haven't got ourselves into. We're going to try to work with as best we can, and on behalf of this group I know they're about to be here. We'd like to welcome you here to our farm in the Des Moines. First of all, I apologize that several people I didn't get to talk to here. I was It doesn't really see a farm every day. I know how it works. It's really going to affect them. It's going to affect your industry. Another point we'd like to make is since the river situation is so low, and I know you and Governor Thompson too has had the Great Lakes plan that has talked about it before you would drain the Great Lakes We're no experts here. Other people have told us more about than that, but we've got rivers here that's going to attract your coal industry, your farm industry, and uh I just inspected the corn and soybean crops of Herman Crohn's farm before that We came in surveying the area by helicopter And the situation on the ground I'm sorry to say is as bad as I expected Secretary Ling has been giving me regular briefings on the job conditions in each state in the farm crisis that it's caused But I wanted to see it for myself And I thank all of you for showing it to me What I saw was not a pretty sight Marker in the cornfield back there showing how tall the corn should be And that was getting up around eight feet and instead it sort of came up to about here at the top tip of any One of the leaves on on me I know this farm in other areas of the country were blessed with rain this week and were grateful for it It was enough to wet the surface and turn the dust into mud And it may have helped by some time, but it hasn't solved the problem America desperately needs more rain Now we can't make it rain, but we could help to ease the pain And that's what the federal government will do Currently 1,973 counties in 38 states are eligible for federal emergency agricultural programs And our administration has developed the Parge Traffic Movie There's no story about Mark Twain. It isn't too sensational, but If it involves a rainstorm, I thought you might like to hear it Mark Twain was leading church one Sunday morning with a friend and it began to pour And his friend asked Twain, do you think it would stop? Twain looked up at the sky and says well, it always has in the past I think we can say the same thing about the drought. Will it end? It always has in the past But the critical before I was in this job I had been invited to address the force to farm fuel Which is being held in Las Vegas in that Yeah And on the way there to the hall where all everyone was assembled One of those sharp kids that were there for the gambling recognized me And said, what are you doing here? And I said, well, I'm addressing the National Farm Bureau