Small Grain Growing 



MAGNITUDE OF THE IIS'DUSTRY— DEVELOPMENT OF 

 NEW VARIETIES— VARIETAL DIFFERENCES, ETC. 



By Willet M. Hays 



Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 



Seven Farinaceous Small Grains — 



Excluding- corn, the big king of the cereals, 

 we have seven farinaceous g-rains which 

 for the purpose of this article we shall 

 call the small grains. 



These with their respective values for 

 1899, as shown by the twelfth census, 

 are: Wheat, $370,000,000; oats, $217,000,000; 

 barley, $42,000,000; rye, $12,000,000; rice, 

 $8,000,000; buckwheat, $6,000,000; while for 

 the millets or non-saccharine sorghums, 

 the value was not determined. 

 As shown by the figures for the crop of 1910 published in 

 December by the United States Department of Agriculture, the 

 values of these crops had grown, respectively, to the following: 

 Wheat, $621,000,000; oats, $385,000,000; barley, $94,000,000, rye, 

 $24,000,000; rice, $17,000,000; buckwheat, $11,000,000. 



Wheat the Golden Queen of the Harvests —Men are en- 

 chanted with the sowing of wheat seeds, with harvesting the 

 golden fields of grain, with the hum of the great threshing 

 machine, with the movement of the great cars and ships laden 

 with the trillions of berries, with the burring of the mighty 

 mills, with the mysteries of the bake oven, and with the never 

 cloying pleasures of white bread covered with June-yellow 

 butter. 



If a grain of wheat could tell the story of its brothers, sisters, 

 father, mother, uncles, aunts, and its other relatives near and 

 remote, it would equal any fairy tale. 



One kind of berry would tell of its origin in England, another 

 in France, another in Germany, and perchance another in Russia; 

 each with its forl)ears back in some remote neighborhood, or 

 may be in still another country, with possibly 'a legend as to its 

 unknown wild parentage. 



Until in recent decades the history of the varieties of wheat, 

 and of the other cereals is not of record. No doubt selection by 

 man in more or less of a blundering way has gone on for many 



