THE STORY OF BREAD 19 



back the crops the settlers and things raise. The 

 reaper had to precede the railroad, just as broad 

 acres had to precede the reaper. 



Much is said about the renaissance in arts and 

 letters. Away off in the future some historian, look- 

 ing for something to write about, will turn to the 

 early years of the nineteenth century as the begin- 

 ning of a renaissance of happy living — a renaissance 

 of work and play, progress and plenty. 



HE Greeks and Romans were long 

 on art, but short on bread. Sit 

 tight, else the jar of the next 

 statement will dump you out. A 

 modern farmer, with the practice 

 of modern scientific knowledge, 

 and the use of modern machines, 

 can with three months' labor raise as much wheat 

 as could an old Roman had he worked ten hours 

 a day, six days a week, for all the weeks of his 

 three score and ten years. In the time of Nero it 

 took four and a half days' labor to raise a bushel 

 of wheat; when the reaper was invented it took 

 three hours; and in the time of Roosevelt it takes 

 ten minutes. 



The smallest crop in a new country is not children, 

 and so the reaper came at the right time. 





4 l 



'•t 



?*N 



^A 



*» \ 



