24 



THE STORY OF BREAD 



disappeared from our vocabularies. They belong 

 to a time that was. The reaper has made the low- 

 lands rich, has educated the many, and is giving 

 bread and clothes to those that toil. No longer 

 does the world stand still — waiting to be fed. 



wSOP <OaSOP 



HE country philosopher who said, 

 "If our foresight was only as good 

 as our hindsight, all of us would 

 do wonders," coined a pat phrase 

 freighted with truth. To look 

 ahead is to see little, to look back 

 is to see much. But when some- 

 thing new is held up, and the laughter is hushed, and 

 the discussions grow commonplace, then everybody 

 sees it. An accomplished fact is so easy to see that 

 we exclaim, " Why didn't I think of that myself? " 

 Then improvements follow. The genius in one man 

 ignites the genius in other men. While more than 

 fifty centuries passed in review before man thought 

 out the right principles of a practical reaper, less than 

 three-fourths of one century slipped off the calen- 

 dar until that reaper was made a perfect machine. 

 McCormick's first reaper was crude. But so were 

 his tools. His anvil, for instance, was a large stone. 

 But his reaper, crude as it was, contained the basic 

 principles that are to be found in the modern up-to- 



