WHEAT IN EUROPE 329 



barley are used as the bread cereals much more 

 extensively than is wheat. In fact the Germans 

 are noted as ' black bread ' eaters, although in 

 recent years wheat bread has been gaining in 

 favor rapidly. The principal wheat regions are 

 in the southern and western parts of the country. 



German farms are small but every foot of ground 

 is made to yield as much as possible. Intensive 

 farming, rotation of crops, and the extensive use 

 of fertilizers have built up the German farm to a 

 high point of efficiency. They are now being 

 referred to even in the United States as examples of 

 what can be accomplished by modern agriculture. 



Small machinery is used almost entirely. Meas- 

 ured by the standards of the machinery used on 

 the large fields of the United States or Canada, 

 one might be tempted to say that the Germans 

 are not up-to-date. This assertion would not be 

 true ; for their machinery is well adapted to the 

 sizes of their fields. In acreage the farms range 

 from two to thirty acres, the latter representing 

 a large field. As in France, the work is generally 

 done with small plows, harvesters, and threshers. 

 In some places, though, the cradle and flail are 

 still in use. 



The total production in 1913 was 171,075,000 

 bushels, representing an average yield of more 

 than 35 bushels per acre. Although German 

 wheat is softer than most of the American wheat, 



