124 WHEAT 



that grain yields are beginning to decrease, and 

 wheat farming is becoming less profitable on the 

 older lands, especially in California. 



The Pacific coast wheat grower is up against 

 the same problems that confront the western 

 plains farmer the conservation of humus and 

 nitrogen and the maintenance of the productive- 

 ness of his soil. 



In the California experiment station Bulletin 

 No. 211, "How to Increase the Wheat Yield," 

 Professor G. W. Shaw comments upon past and 

 present conditions of wheat farming in California 

 as follows: 



"The old methods of grain growing still persist 

 in California. They are generally very simple and 

 very crude. At first satisfactory returns were 

 obtained because of an unusually fertile, virgin 

 soil. At the outset there was an annual cropping 

 of the land to the cereals with no attempt to 

 either rotate crops or restore any of the humus 

 that such a system destroys. In order to cover 

 as large an acreage as possible the crudest methods 

 of culture were practiced. The practice con- 

 sisted simply of three or four-inch plowing, broad- 

 casting the seed, and harrowing it in. But little 

 attention was paid to the selection of pure seed, 

 and far too often the growers purchased a second 

 or a third grade seed under the false notion that 

 anything that would sprout was good enough. 



"The more important changes which have 

 taken place since the introduction of the above 

 named crude practices have been the replacing 

 of the header and stationary thresher by the com- 



