HIS LIFE AND WORK 



persuaded primitive man to forsake his wars and 

 his wanderings and to learn the peaceful habits 

 of agriculture. 



In any case, whatever its earlier history may 

 have been, wheat is to-day the chief food of the 

 civilized races of mankind. It is the main 

 support of 600,000,000 people. It has over- 

 come its natural enemies weeds, fungus 

 diseases, insects, and drought, and attained 

 a crop total of 3,500,000,000 bushels a year. 

 To the intelligent, purposeful nations that have 

 become the masters of the human race, wheat 

 is now the staff of life, the milk of Mother Earth, 

 the essence of soil and air and rain and sunshine. 



But, although wheat was known to be the 

 best food for fifty centuries, it did not until very 

 recently, until thirty or forty years ago, become 

 a world-food. Every community ate up its own 

 w^heat. It had little or none to sell, because, no 

 matter how much grain the farmers planted, 

 they could not in the eight or ten days of harvest 

 gather more than a certain limited quantity into 

 their barns. All that one man could do, with 

 his wife to help him, was to snatch in enough 



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