Wheat belt

“ When harvest comes, the ripe corn is cut down by the reaping-machines, following one another in the same way as the ploughs. In many cases the wheat is threshed at the same time that it is cut, and the grain put, not into sacks, but loose straight into the waggons, which are built up like huge bins. The wheat is then hauled to the nearest town where there is an elevator or granary. ”

“ A fair estimate of all the wheat raised in 1846 does not exceed 160,000 bushels, which, by the average, would grow upon 8,000 acres of land - not a hand's breadth compared to the whole body claimed and held in idleness. The quality of the wheat produced here is, I believe, unequalled throughout the world ; it certainly excels in weight, size of grain, and whiteness of its flour, that of our Atlantic States, Chili, or the Black sea, and is far before any I have seen in California. ”

“ A standard wheat should be hardy, strong in the straw; not easy to shell and waste, prolific, thin in the bran, white in flour, and the flour rich in starch and gluten. The earliness or lateness of a variety affects its liability to disease.
Much may be done by every farmer to secure a variety suited to his soil from his own fields. Let a watchful eye observe every remarkable head of wheat—a very early one, a very long head, any which have an unusual sized grain, or is distinguished for any excellent property. ”

“ The true Cause why Wheat is not (especially on any strong Soil) to be sown immediately after Wheat, is, That the first Wheat standing almost a Year on the Ground, by which it must grow harder; and Wheat Seed-time being soon after Harvest in England, there is not Space of Time to till the Land so much as a second Crop of Wheat requires.
Tho’ sometimes in poorer Land, that is lighter, Wheat has succeeded Wheat with tolerable Success ”

“ A little of the straw is taken to the farmhouse, for use as litter in stable and pig-sty; the rest is set fire to as soon as the wheat is gone, and a great, unsightly, black patch is the last record in the field of the year's crop.
The worst features of the "header" are that the wheat has to be much riper than for the reaper or self-binder, and consequently more is strewed about the field and lost; the machine cuts the wheat higher up also, and consequently leaves more weeds to ripen and leave their seed. Its advantage is the greater breadth of its cut and more rapid rate of work. ”

“ Thus the wheat directly or indirectly finds its way to a mill, where it will be mixed with other wheats and ground into flour.
We have now followed wheat production in 21 England from the ground to the mill. But at the present time home grown wheat can provide only about one-fifth of the bread-stuffs consumed by the population of the United Kingdom, and any account of the growing of wheat cannot be complete without some mention of the methods employed in other countries. The extensive methods of wheat-growing in the more thinly populated countries have already been shortly mentioned. ”

“ The same trouble exists in the United States, even in regions where the soil is less adapted for the growing of wheat by the mile than in Western Canada. Yet it has been proved again and again that much more money can be made by intensive methods on small farms than by growing grain on a large scale. It was this discovery that led to the decrease in the acreage of wheat grown in California and Oregon. ”

“ The mode of storing wheat generally adopted in this country is very objectionable. After being beaten out, often by the feet of horses and oxen, it is deposited in holes in the ground, where it is kept during the winter. ”

“ The truth of the matter respecting soils for wheat, is, that any soil good for corn, potatoes, or a garden, may, with proper tillage, produce the best of wheat. Experience in England, and in all the old countries on the continent of Europe, shows us that old land may be made to yield as large crops of wheat as the virgin soil of the New World. The production of wheat at suitable intervals, for a century, on the same land, need not lessen its power to produce good wheat in large quantities. ”

“ Hill has said that if all the fruit orchards set out in western states come to maturity, it will require twenty times the rolling stock that exists today to ship the fruit out in time to reach the market in a salable condition. The same of wheat, especially in the West, where wheat is raised in quantities too great for any individual granary. A few years ago, when the northwestern states had their banner crop, piles of wheat the size of a miniature town lay exposed to weather for weeks on Washington and Idaho and Montana railroads because the railroads had not sufficient cars to haul it away. ”

“ The wheat is sown in rows with wide spaces between them, which are utilised for beans and other crops, and no sooner is it removed than daikon (Raphanus sativus) , cucumbers, or some other vegetable, takes its place, as the land under careful tillage and copious manuring bears two, and even three, crops, in the year. The soil is trenched for wheat as for all crops except rice, not a weed is to be seen, and the whole country looks like a well-kept garden. ”

“ A huge pall of dust, chaff, and smoke hung over the vast wheat-field, and the air seemed charged with a roar. The glaring gold of the wheat-field appeared to be crisscrossed everywhere with bobbing black streaks of horses—bays, blacks, whites, and reds; by big, moving painted machines, lifting arms and puffing straw; by immense wagons piled high with sheaves of wheat, lumbering down to the smoking engines and the threshers that sent long streams of dust and chaff over the lifting straw-stacks; by wagons following the combines to pick up the plump brown sacks of wheat ”

“ The climate and soil are well fitted for this cereal, but owing to defects and carelessness in the agriculture and harvesting, the crops, though excellent, fall short of what most corn-growing countries produce. Further—owing to foul boats and granaries, and to the moist heat of the months immediately succeeding [Pg 255] harvest, the wheat reaches England in a state too dirty and weevelled for market. The hard wheat is preferred by the natives in India to the soft, probably for no better cause than that the hardness of the grain more closely resembles their favorite food, rice. ”

“ Wheat lands ought to be so farmed as to grow better from year to year; certainly, they ought to hold their own. Lands may be kept in heart by the adoption of a rotation suited to each particular soil; or, if frequent wheat crops are raised, by fallows or manuring. It is a fact that in this neighborhood farms in the hands of careful men are yielding better crops of wheat every year; while multitudes of farmers think themselves fortunate in twelve or fifteen bushels to the acre, there is another class who expect twenty-five or thirty bushels, and in good seasons get it. ”

“ In Russian wheats 12 per cent. is about the average, and that too is about the figure for many of the wheats from Canada, the States, Argentina, and parts of Australia. Indian wheats sometimes contain less than 10 per cent. This is also about the percentage in the wheats of the arid lands on the Pacific coast and in Australia. These figures show that home grown wheats often contain as much as 5 per cent. more water than the foreign 53 wheats imported from the more arid countries. The more water a wheat contains the less flour it will yield in the mill. ”

“ No one has ever found wild wheat in any country; it would be as strange as a wild cabbage or turnip. But the practical question is, How can wheat be most surely and profitably grown? The first requisite is a suit [Pg 424] able soil. A clay or limestone soil is usually considered best, as there is much lime in wheat-bran. Such soil is better than light sand, or some of the poorer loams. But the large yields of wheat on the Western prairies, and on the rich alluvial soils of California river-bottoms, shows that the best of wheat may grow on other than clay lands. ”

“ But the wheat-midge, or weevil, is the great enemy, rendering the cultivation of wheat in some localities useless. One precaution is, to get the wheat forward so early and fast as to have it out of the way before they destroy it. This is often done by early sowing, high fertilization, and warm land. Sometimes wheat is too late for them, and then a good crop is secured. But this can only be relied on in cool, moist climates. Our hot, dry seasons are not suitable for wheat, late enough to be out of the way of the weevil. The great remedy for this enemy is his destruction. ”

“ On Broadbalk Field at Rothamsted, England, wheat has been grown on the same land every year for about two-thirds of a century. As an average of the sixty years, 1852 to 1911 the yield was 12.6 bushels an acre on unfertilized land, 14.6 where mineral plant food was annually applied, 20.3 where nitrogen salts alone were used, and 37 where both nitrogen and mineral plant food were applied. ”

“ There are lumber industries carried on here, and extensive flour mills, and while the climate is in every respect all that could be desired for the growth of both winter and summer wheat, the fertility of the soil is such as to make it incomparable. The entire country and its citizens are continually busy sowing and harvesting their wheat, storing it in large warehouses, whence it is shipped to the Pacific Coast markets and from there to Asiatic and European countries. ”

“ Except in regions of large-scale production, wheat is usually grown in rotation with other crops; for a nurse crop for grass seeding; and as a cover crop to prevent soil erosion and leaching. Some is sold, some kept for seed, and a percentage of the total production much larger than in areas of specialization is consumed on the farm and grown for such purpose. Such farmers, while growing some wheat, may even find the balance of their interest on the consumer's side. ”

“ The average produce of this grain on rich flooded lands, is from eighty to a hundred bushels per acre. Wheat in the same situations yields from thirty to forty bushels; and barley and oats, about fifty bushels an acre. On forest lands, however, the crops are not so productive, unless the ground be well manured; but the wheat, barley and oats, grown on this land, are much heavier and superior in quality. The difference of the weight of wheat grown in forest and flooded lands, is upon an average not less than 8 lbs. per bushel. ”

“ As transport facilities increased wheat-growing areas were developed in Canada, in the Western States of America, in the Argentine, and in Australia, and the importation of foreign wheat increased enormously. This led to a rapid decrease in prices, and wheat-growing had to be abandoned on all but the most suitable soils in the British Isles. From 1880 onwards thousands of acres of land which had grown wheat profitably for many years were laid down to grass. In the last decade the world’s population has increased faster than the wheat-growing area has been extended. ”

“ It is believed that under given climatic, soil, and cultural conditions, all wheat varieties will approach one type, distinctive of the conditions in question, and that the California wheat type is a result of prevailing unchangeable conditions. More researeh is needed, however, before definite principles can be laid down concerning the formation of distinctive wheat types in the various dry-farm sections. Under any condition, a change of seed, keeping improvement always in view, should be baneficial. ”

“ Here and there we passed large wheat fields. Several years before the war, owing to the heavy English import duties on tobacco, the people had begun to raise wheat on a more extensive scale. Here, as in other parts of America, the cornfields are seeded to wheat without removing the stalks. The weevil is bad, especially if the grain lies long in the straw. After floating off the light seed the good, heavy grain is broadcasted, mixed with shell lime. Between Fredericksburg and Richmond we noticed a good many swampy spots, which might easily be drained. ”

“ The Walla Walla region is said to be the finest stretch of wheat country in the world. Lava slag, when decomposed, makes the richest of soil,—deep and seemingly of inexhaustible fertility. A failure of harvests is said never to have been known in that country; the average yield of wheat is thirty-five to forty bushels an acre, and oats have yielded a hundred bushels. Apples and peaches thrive, and are of a superior quality. ”

“ With the development of the Northwest, the raising of spring wheat is rapidly gaining upon winter wheat, having increased from about one-third of the total wheat acreage in 1901. Wheat benefited even more than corn from the improved machinery which came into use about 1850 and subsequently. This, together with the improvement of transportation which made it possible for the product of the interior to reach the European market, and together with the adaptability of the prairie soils to wheat culture, resulted in a more rapid increase in the acreage devoted to it than was true of corn. ”

“ They produce breakings, which then pass to the stones for grinding into flour. The surface of the rolls are smoother than those of the stones, and the hull is, therefore, less torn. Of course the disintegrating by means of rolls is not appropriate for every kind of wheat. If soft, mild wheat is passed through the rolls, it leaves the rolls in a flat, compressed condition; whereas, with the same treatment, hard (Hungarian) wheat is reduced to fragments, and so regularly broken. ”