CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 



The children born and bred in this Red River 

 Valley have never seen, except in pictures, a 

 sickle or a flail. Their only conception of a 

 harvest time is that a battery of red self-binders, 

 with reels whirling and knives clacking, shall 

 charge upon the wheat as though each acre 

 were a battalion of hostile infantry, and make 

 war until the land is strewn with heaps of fallen 

 sheaves. Famine, to these children of the 

 wheat, seems as remote a danger as the cooling 

 of the sun. Even the one young State of North 

 Dakota, not yet of age, is now growing food 

 for herself, and for twelve million people besides. 



So, the urgent world-problem is to teach 

 other nations the lesson of the Red River Val- 

 ley. There is not yet enough bread so that 

 we may put a loaf at every plate. To feed the 

 whole race according to the present American 

 standard of living would require ten thousand 

 million bushels three times as much as we 

 are raising now; and the demand is fast 

 outgrowing the supply. Sooner or later the 

 Chinese will learn to eat at least one loaf a 

 week apiece, and when they do, it will mean 



[232] 



