Wheat

“ Wheat grows so luxuriantly that “volunteer crops”—the produce of the second and even third year from the seed shaken out in the gathering of the previous harvest—spring up without the labour of man. Fruits of every kind, from the apples, pears, and grapes of temperate climes, to the pine-apples and bananas of the tropics, come to perfection within her limits. ”

“ I love to watch the wheat, now that it's really turning. It waves like a sea and stretches off into the distance as far as the eye can follow it. It's as high as my waist, and sometimes it moves up and down like a slowly breathing breast. When the sun is low it turns a pure Roman gold, and makes my eyes ache. ”

“ We shall thus trace throughout the whole pedigree of wheat from the time when its ancestors first diverged from the common stock of the lilies and the water-plantains, to the time when savage man found it growing wild among the untilled plains of prehistoric Asia, and took it under his special protection in the little garden-plots around his wattled hut, whence it has gradually altered under his constant selection into the golden grain that now covers half the lowland tilth of Europe and America. ”

“ Here and there broad fields of wheat were already showing a tender green from the springing of the grain which had lain all winter under frost and snow, and between them new-ploughed fields sent up a pleasant smell, the wholesome smell of the kindly earth turning itself again to the sun and the rain. ”

“ No where in the west have I seen better crops. The yellow golden wheat, the bearded and densely standing barley, the luxuriant oats, and stout corn, as they were spread out before the eye in vast fields rapidly succeeding each other, and gently waving in the summer breeze, presented a scene full of interest, and bore indisputable testimony in relation to the excellence and fertility of the soil. ”

“ But with the spreading of wheat came the dawn of a higher civilization; and the story of wheat down to modern times showed the development of man. Wheat-fields of many lands, surrounding homes of prosperous farmers; fruitful toil of happy peoples; the miller and his humming mill!
When wheat crossed the ocean to America it came to strange and wonderful fulfilment of its destiny. America, fresh, vast, and free, with its sturdy pioneers ever spreading the golden grain westward; with the advancing years when railroad lines kept pace with the indomitable wheat-sowers ”

“ Everywhere the grain stood ripe and the hot afternoon was full of the smell of the ripe wheat, like the smell of bread baking in an oven. The breath of the wheat and the sweet clover passed him like pleasant things in a dream. ”

“ We know that a grain of wheat planted in the ground will, under the influence of the sunshine and rain, send forth a blade, and then a stalk, and then the full head, because there is behind the grain of wheat a force irresistible and constantly at work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A Wheat plant, that is not planted early, sends out no Root above the Grain before the Spring; and is nourish’d all the Winter by a single Thread, proceeding from the Grain up to the Surface of the Ground. ”

“ We should judge by the shadows that it is late in the afternoon and all are hurrying to finish their task. Our attention is held by the three stooping figures of the women gleaning or gathering the wheat. They have caught up the corners of their aprons and tied them in a tight knot at the back, making a sort of bag in which to place the broken heads of wheat, while their hands are filled with the stalks. ”

“ Wheat is a plant of the grass kind, but grows higher than common grass. It is grown from seed, which is grains of wheat kept until hard and dry.
2. Ruts are made in the soil by a plough, and into these the seed is cast. Then the soil is covered over them by a harrow, drawn by a horse.
3. Rain and warm sunshine help the grains to grow. They grow into tall, jointed stems, and soon the ears of wheat appear. They are green at first, but the sun ripens them and turns them yellow. ”

“ For instance, true wheat is that which grows to a head with the beard bristling round it, which is purged from the chaff and ground to flour, compounded into a loaf and taken for food, and renders the nature and the uses of bread. ”

“ The development of grain produced wheat, and wheat was ground into flour, and flour was baked into bread, and bread had for untold centuries been the sustenance and the staff of life.
Centuries ago an old Chaldean priest tried to ascertain if wheat had ever grown wild. That question never was settled. It was universally believed, however, that wheat had to have the cultivation of man. Nevertheless, the origin of the plant must have been analogous to that of other plants. Wheat-growers must necessarily have been people who stayed long in one place. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Although many different kinds of wheat are raised in different parts of the world most of them have been derived from one wild ancestor, Triticum sativum. Forms known as hard and soft wheat and dozens of others suited to different regions or market conditions have been developed by plant breeders. As the most important of all the cereals it has been much studied, and its cultivation in America is on such a tremendous scale that we furnish a large part of the world’s supply. ”

“ I have no doubt that it is true, as stated by those who have made the experiment, that the flour of wheat, raised on a cultivated soil recently dressed with crude, stable manure, may readily be distinguished by its odor, from the flour of wheat raised on a new and undepraved soil, or from that raised on a cultivated soil which has been dressed with properly digested manure. ”

“ It is cheering in late autumn and early winter when no other young growth is to be seen on the farm, suddenly to find the field covered with the fresh shoots of the wheat in regular lines, and to notice how, after its first appearance, it makes little further upright growth for a time, but spreads laterally over the ground as the roots extend downwards. ”

“ So rich is the soil, so favorable are the normal climatic conditions, that wheat attains a high degree of perfection; while, besides its growth of cereals, including a phenomenal annual corn-crop and all the farm-products found in the other states, it raises cotton, hay, barley, potatoes, all kinds of vegetables, broom-corn, castor-beans, sorghum, peanuts and melons, in addition to a wide variety of fruits, including peaches, grapes, strawberries and many other small fruits. ”

“ The whole amount of wheat ever raised on them, however, is small compared to the rice, millet, and wheat raised in China, India, and Russia, and is insignificant compared to the amount of produce grown on the myriad little farm plots. ”

“ Because of the long summer days and short nights, wheat can be cultivated to the sixtieth parallel. Corn, which gets scarcely enough warmth and light in the torrid zone to become a prolific crop, attains its greatest yield in the latitude of fourteen-hour days. ”

“ We have certain laws to observe in order to obtain wheat. We do not sow wheat on a bare rock, for we have learned by experience that it will not grow there. We do not sow onion and carrot seed in the middle of the street and expect to reap a bountiful crop, for our experience teaches us differently. ”

“ But in drill’d Wheat, where the Plants stand in a regular Order, the Sun-beams are more duly distributed to all Parts of the Plants in the Ranks; for which Way soever the Rows are directed, if they be strait, the Rays must, some time of the Day, fall on the Intervals, and be reflected by the Ground, whence the lower Parts of the Wheat-stalks must receive the greater Share of Heat, being nearest to the Point of Incidence, having no Weeds to shadow them. ”

“ No, I'm simply an agriculturist, late professor of agronomy in the Iowa State Agricultural College. It takes optimism, believe me, sir, to try to get twenty bushels of wheat out of land where only twelve grew before, or two ears of corn where only two-thirds of one has been the standard. ”

“ As the stems and leaves of wheat plants grow before their seeds, if all the phosphoric acid, potash, and lime available in the soil is consumed before the organization of the seeds begin, from what source is nature to draw her supply of these ingredients to form a good crop of wheat? If the farmer could reverse the order of nature, and grow a good supply of seeds first, and make straw afterwards, then many a one would harvest more wheat and less straw. ”

“ There is no grain more prolific than wheat, Nature having bestowed upon it this quality, as being the substance which she destined for the principal nutriment of man. A modius of36 wheat, if the soil is favourable, as at Byzacium,199 a champaign district of Africa, will yield as much as one hundred and fifty200 modii of grain. ”

“ But as Wheat requires to have the Earth lie harder on and about it, in the Winter; so it also requires more Dung (or somewhat else) to dissolve the Earth about its Roots, after the cold Winter is past, than Rye doth, whose Roots never were so much confined.
’Tis another general Rule, that all Sorts of Vegetables thrive best, when sown on fresh till’d Ground, immediately after ’tis plow’d. ”

“ The cultivation of wheat is the reverse in every circumstance. Besides cloathing the earth with herbage, and preserving its fertility, it feeds the laborers plentifully, requires from them only a moderate toil, except in the season of harvest, raises great numbers of animals for food and service, and diffuses plenty and happiness among the whole. ”

“ Wheat is not only one of the most adaptable of plants. It is also one of the most plastic and prone to variation. During the many centuries over which its cultivation has extended it has yielded hundreds of different varieties, whose origin, however, except in a few doubtful cases is unknown. ”

“ Yet father raised large crops of corn, potatoes, oats and wheat. Wheat grew very large but sometimes ran too much to straw; some seasons, rust would strike it and then the grain would shrink, but as that and gets older, and the more the clay is worked up with the soil, the better wheat it raises. In my opinion it will be as good wheat land as the oak openings or prairies of the West for all time to come. ”

“ In the early spring, when the wheat is green and young, and scarcely appears above the ground, it comes up in the lines in which it was sown, parted from one another and distinctly showing their separation and the furrows. ”

“ If you raise wheat on virgin soil on the prairie it will grow to perhaps about the height of a man’s shoulder the first year. The next year it will not be quite so high. The third year it will be perhaps not so high as the second year, but it will mature earlier. Devote that land to some other use for a year or two and then go back to the cultivation of wheat again, and you will get the wheat growing to the height of about the second or third year, but it will mature earlier. ”

“ Wheat, which is grown over so large a portion of the world, has become adapted to special climates. Wheat imported from India and sown in good wheat soil in England produced the most meagre ears; while wheat taken from France to the West Indian Islands produced either wholly barren spikes or spikes furnished with two or three miserable seeds, while West Indian seed by its side yielded an enormous harvest. ”

“ Commencing with the vegetable kingdom, from which our early progenitors, probably during long ages, drew all their sustenance, the cereals, or cultivated grasses, come first, as containing all the elements necessary to life, and being therefore most largely consumed. Wheat and its congeners, which rank highest in quality, had been distinguished in the form of bread, as "the staff of life," long before the physiological demonstration of the fact had been attained. Wheat, oats, rye, and barley, maize and rice, are the chief members of this group ”

“ I have heard people exclaiming at the beautiful effect of the breezes passing over a luxuriant field of growing wheat, giving the appearance of waves on a lake; but when the wheat is in bloom, it is doubtful if this is a reason for congratulation, as the blooms are rubbed off in the process, which may be the cause of thin-chested ears at harvest, when, instead of being set in full rows of four or five grains abreast, only two or three can be found, reducing the total number in an ear from a maximum of about seventy to fifty or less. ”