STRIPPING WHEAT IN 



wrt 



The Worlds Commercial Products 





WHEAT 



: 



Amongst the World's Commercial Products the first place, if not in actual monetary value 

 at any rate in importance to man, must be given to the foodstuffs on which his very existence 

 depends. In the times before means of transport were perfected, each nation was self- 

 supporting. Indeed, each tribe or even each family collected wild plants, or raised the crops 

 for its own sustenance. This state of affairs still exists amongst the more primitive races. 

 In West Africa, for example, there are near each village the "farms," often worked by all the 

 people in common, where are grown the supplies of Indian corn, millet, cassava or manioc, yams 

 and other edible roots, on which, in addition to the wild products collected in the " bush," the 

 members of the tribe exist. After the harvest' the crop is carefully stored either in the field, 

 in special granaries, or in the individual houses to last over the period before the next crop 

 is ripe. No greater injury can be inflicted on a village than to-destroy these stores, especially 

 if, in addition, the supply of seed for the next season's sowing is taken away. The natives 

 in Central America, etc., subsist largely on manioc, and a jar of farine, or the meal of this plant, 

 is commonly to be found in each hut. A similar state of affairs was formerly the rule in 

 such countries as Great Britain, and although the advance of civilisation has revolutionised 

 this simple mode of life for the industrial and other sections of the community, we have only 

 to consider the conditions of life of the peasantry of the west of Scotland, parts of Ireland, and 

 elsewhere to realise that even now there are large numbers of families in the United Kingdom 

 practically dependent on their own efforts in tilling the soil for their support. 



2— C.P. 



