Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson

“ Americans are the cleverest people in the world for making machines do their work. Wheat is moved by machinery from the seed to the loaf of bread. Milling machinery is very wonderful. The grains are crushed between steel rollers. Other machines sift out the brown skin of the wheat seeds, and take out the little germ thatwould grow into a new plant. Machines mix the starch cells in the middle of the grain with the gluten cells around them. At the very last the flour is sifted through a silk gauze called bolting cloth. At the top of a mill the dusty brown grains pour into a big hopper. ”

“ The world wants to know every day how those seed babies are getting along. Wheat has as many troubles as human babies. In dry summers little chinch bugs feed on them. In cool, moist summers the tiny Hessian fly, only one-sixth inch long, lays eggs that hatch into little worms on them. Then there is the mildew and rust. In the spring, wheat needs rain of melting snow. At harvest time warm sunshine to dry the ripe grain. ”

“ Those will be made of wheat flour, too. We use more wheat in America than any other kind of food. Everyone who lives here eats a barrel of flour every year. That is about ninety million barrels. It takes nearly five bushels of wheat to make a barrel of white flour. Four hundred and fifty million bushels of wheat! Yes, indeed! But we really grow about seven hundred million bushels. We have a great deal of wheat and flour to sell to countries across the ocean, where they cannot grow enough to feed all the people. Wheat is the bread of all white people. ”

“ In one day a big thresher can clean two thousand bushels of wheat. It takes a great many men to feed its clattering iron jaws, to pitch the straw back so the thresher will not be buried, and to catch the grain in bags or wagon beds. ”

“ In the old days, and in many backward countries today,men cut wheat with scythes by hand. An American fastened a number of scythes or blades to a shaft and made a reaping machine that could cut as much wheat as many men. (See McCormick, page 1133.) The reaper not only cuts the wheat but gathers it in bundles with the heads all one way, and ties the bundles. It is really a reaper and binder. Men gather the bundles behind the reaper and stack them in shocks for the sun to dry the grain. ”

“ Not in the wheat field where the grain is turning from green to gold, but in big city banks that may be a thousand miles away. The farmers must have a lot of money to pay men and machines to save the wheat. They go to the banks in the small towns where they trade, to borrow money. In a few weeks, when the wheat is sold, they can pay the money back. The little banks have to borrow money of the big city banks. ”

“ They use corn and rye and oats, too, but more wheat than all the others put together, The Chinese and Japanese and Filipinos and many other peoples eat more rice. But they are beginning to buy our white flour, too.
Where does all this wheat come from? Just farms. Little farms and big farms, in a great many of our states, grow wheat. These wheat fields cover fifty million acres of our land. Some wheat fields are so big that a hundred men go into them at once. They ride on sulky plows drawn by horses, or they use steam plows. ”

“ Each one carries a tiny load of wheat up. In a few minutes the wheat is all lifted into a weighing bin at the top. When a load is weighed the wheat is dropped into the elevator tower.The grain buyer pays the farmer for the wheat, and the farmer pays the bank the money he borrowed and has a good deal left over. The grain buyer has to borrow money now, for he must buy the wheat as fast as it is brought in. He can pay his loan when he sells the wheat in big city markets, or to millers. He makes a few cents on every bushel, and the railroad makes something for hauling it. ”

“ If you ever go to Chicago you must visit the Board of Trade, where wheat and other grains are bought and sold every day by men who guess differently. The men who guess the nearest right, make money by buying and selling wheat. ”

“ The story of wheat is a continued story that is told over and over again, every year. But it is never quite the same story. People are always guessing how it is going to come out at the end of the year. ”

“ They follow the harrows with drill seeders that drop the seed through pipes in rows. Behind each pipe is a little plow like a garden trowel, that covers the seed. In some parts of our country wheat is planted in the spring. In others, where winter is less severe, it is planted in the fall. ”

“ You were proud to see your name in print. Our president gets his name in the paper very often. But no one, not even kings and queens, gets a column or so every day in all the big city papers in many countries and in many languages. ”