CROPS are dying. Throughout central and southern Texas swimmers are being turned away from lakes and pools: the dwindling water supply is for drinking, not splashing around in. In San Antonio people are under strict orders to curb their water use, and if you see your neighbours watering the lawn you are supposed to report them to the police. One town resorted to a prayer service; it got 0.03 inches (0.8mm). In June and July Austin hit triple-digit temperatures on 39 days.

Texas's summer has been unusually hot and dry, and punishingly so. According to the state Department of Agriculture, 77 of Texas's 254 counties are experiencing “exceptional” drought conditions, the worst category going. The swathe spans roughly one-fifth of the state, an area larger than Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut combined.

Agriculture is the business that is hardest hit. Losses are already estimated at $3.6 billion and rising. (Under normal circumstances farmers and ranchers bring in about $20 billion a year.) Travis Miller, an agronomist at Texas A&M University's AgriLife centre, reckons that the people being hurt most at the moment are small cow-and-calf operations. Their forage and water supplies have diminished, but the cattle must still be fed. Smaller outfits seldom have much of a cushion to buy extra feed, and Texas had a nasty drought last summer, too. “It'll rain again, and we'll buy some more cows,” says Mr Miller. “But right now we're selling a lot of cows, and selling a lot of calves, and it'll take a while to build that back up.”

There is little relief on the horizon. Last year Congress passed a farm bill that provides several billion dollars in relief for losses sustained that year, but those funds will not be disbursed until the autumn. Last month Texas's governor, Rick Perry, issued a disaster proclamation for much of the state, noting that the drought conditions have worsened the threat of wildfires. If the federal government declares a state of emergency, Texas ranchers will be eligible for low-interest loans and other forms of aid. So far the national Department of Agriculture has demurred, though Texans can get their hands on some federal money through a grasslands-conservation programme.

There might, however, be a silver lining. All the water restrictions and conservation measures may have the effect of encouraging Texans to pay more attention to water management. This is a growing concern not just in the Lone Star state but all over America's arid south-west. Amy Hardberger, of the Environmental Defence Fund in Austin, suggests that asking people to stop watering their lawns in the blistering afternoon sun is like asking them to swap their light bulbs for the energy-efficient variety: not a cure-all, but a valuable conceptual lesson. “You can't do the broader-context stuff unless people understand it in their day-to-day lives,” she says. Meanwhile, everyone is hoping for a change in the weather.