78 I " THE BOOK OF WHEAT 



Proper Stage of Maturity for Harvesting. In most of the 

 wheat growing countries it is a very general practice to begin 

 harvesting before the wheat is quite ripe. This lessens the 

 danger from loss on account of over-ripeness, and if the grain 

 is properly cared for, it does not seem to diminish the yield. 

 Ordinarily, cutting should begin as soon as the straw turns yel- 

 low and the grain is in the dough. A good test is that the 

 kernel "should be soft enough to be easily indented with the 

 thumb nail and hard enough not to be easily crushed between 

 the fingers." 1 In a climate like that of California, wheat may 

 stand without injury for over two months after it is ripe. 

 There is no danger from rain, and the only loss occurring re- 

 sults from an occasional sandstorm. 



HARVESTIN3 IMPLEMENTS. 



Machinery for Harvesting. The development of agricultural 

 machinery is a very important factor in the world's economic 

 progress. Growth in this direction has been very marked in recent 

 years, and in no class of agricultural implements has it been more 

 so than in that for reaping grain. The primitive method of har- 

 vesting wheat doubtless consisted in merely pulling up the 

 plants by the roots and stripping the heads from the stalks by 

 means of a comb or hackle, but long before written history 

 crude implements were devised to assist the hand in pulling or 

 breaking off the straw. From these rude beginnings to the 

 modern combined harvester and thresher is a far cry, and the 

 wheat grower who sacks his thousands of bushels of wheat from 

 over 100 acres in a single day has little conception of the 

 amount of painful study and experimentation, and of the nu- 

 merous inventions it has required to evolve from the ancient 

 sickle the perfected machine with which he so easily gathers 

 his grain. 



The Sickle. Flint implements resembling a rude form of 

 sickle or reaping hook are found among the remains of the 

 later stone age in Europe. The remains of the early European 

 habitations contain bronze sickles. The earliest records of 

 Egypt contain accounts of reaping by means of crudely con- 

 structed implements similar to the modern sickle in form. 

 * Hunt, Cereals in America (1904), p. 103. 



