130 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



acts. France is a demonstration of the fact that a 

 fertile country with a climate favoring it can be 

 most highly developed in the line of special prod- 

 ucts and still grow her own bread. 



From an agricultural point of view, wheat is an 

 indispensable factor in rotations for the maintenance 

 of fertility in the soil. A high-priced cereal is the col- 

 lector of the value which the other factors of the ro- 

 tation store up. There are two high-priced cereals, 

 wheat and rice, and both will serve as rotation-col- 

 lectors, but wheat is vastly more available because 

 of the extra water and soil handling which rice re- 

 quires. Therefore, wheat is indispensable in im- 

 proved farming of the future. 



California should produce her own flour and 

 enough for export. The milling process saves to the 

 State the most valuable part of the grain, namely, 

 the bran and other feeding stuffs required for dairy 

 and other branches of the live-stock industry which 

 indirectly enrich the soil and increase all products, 

 with their by-products of manure. From this point 

 of view, it might answer to import wheat and export 

 flour, but California's milling industry will be most 

 permanent and prosperous if it can command home- 

 grown wheat. Great mills have a natural tendency 

 to draw near to plenty of wheat. 



In the change of objectives from production of 

 export wheat suitable for blending by foreign mill- 

 ers to the local production of flour both for home 

 use and export, it became necessary to demonstrate 

 the possibility of growing in California wheats richer 



