EFFORTS TO INCREASE FOOD RESOURCES 



This development could never have taken place if the 

 crops were not adapted to the varied soil and seasonal 

 conditions in those regions where they are best grown. 

 Some crops are better adapted to machine cultivation and 

 others are preeminently fitted for hand cultivation. Al- 

 though machinery has now been skillfully devised to 

 plant, cultivate, and harvest the corn crop, all of these 

 operations for thousands of years were done by hand. 

 Wheat, on the other hand, has always necessitated ma- 

 chinery in some form. The seeds are too small to sow 

 singly by hand and must be broadcast. This demands some 

 form of raking the soil to cover the seeds. The plants need 

 no cultivation or weeding, and when the crop is ready to 

 gather, it has to be cut with some kind of knife, flailed 

 with some kind of beater, and cleaned with some kind of 

 blower. Through the ages man's inventive genius has 

 been directed toward better means of performing these 

 operations. 



We think of the early explorers busily searching the 

 earth's surface for gold and silver to make ornaments, 

 and for copper and iron to make swords and armor. But 

 one of the main uses for metal has always been to make 

 food easier to produce. The hoe and sickle were first made 

 of stone, then of bronze, and finally of iron and steel. 

 With a little alteration in shape, the hoe became a spade 

 and then a plow; the sickle became a scythe and then a 

 cradle and finally a reaper. Where formerly it took one man 

 a good part of the season to prepare the ground, plant the 

 seed, and harvest and thresh an acre of wheat, the same 

 thing can now be done in less than three hours of actual 

 working time — plowing and planting in one operation, 

 harvesting and threshing in another. 



But what value would all this machinery have if the 

 plants did not grow properly and ripen a useable crop? 

 The New England settlers, as we have noted, could not 



[323] 



