IMPORTANCE OF THE WHEAT CROP. 81 



CHAPTER VI. 



IMPORTANCE OF THE WHEAT CROP. 

 COMMERCE AND POPULATION. 



As an additional stimulus to our farmers to make 

 efforts for greater yield in the production of wheat, we 

 will call their attention to its great importance in the 

 commercial and financial world. 



Wheat is now the great sensation in commercial circles 

 everywhere, and is the liveliest of all commodities in 

 general trade. Especially to the United States is the 

 matter one of great and growing importance, as many 

 foreign countries are becoming more and more dependent 

 upon us for their supply of breadstuifs ; and it is alike 

 our duty and interest to supply them as fully as possible, 

 and as cheaply as can be, consistent with fair returns for 

 our labor. 



Our room and area are almost unlimited and our facili- 

 ties unbounded. Our soils and localities are numerous and 

 diversified, while our climate embraces a wide and varied 

 range, and generally of the most congenial character 

 reaching from ocean to ocean, and from the tropics to the 

 frozen zone. It seems emphatically our mission to feed 

 the Old World in its decline. It has been our grand 

 privilege to give the Old World, even in our youth, an 

 example of the best form of human government yet 

 known to them. And now, before we are half grown, it 

 is our privilege, and within our power, to furnish them 

 with the very means to sustain their natural lives, and 

 avert from them threatened starvation. 



