THE FARM 327 



milk shall no longer serve as a simple and well-balanced 

 food supply, inexpensive enough to come within the means 

 of every one who is willing to work. 



With the development immediately following the Civil 

 War of the trans-Mississippi region, and then later of the 

 great Canadian Northwest, together with the use of the 

 wheat lands of Australia and of Argentina in South America, 

 the wheat supply of the world increased much faster annually 

 than did the wheat-eating population of the world. But 

 there are no longer any such extensive areas of fertile soils 

 waiting the plow to convert them into wheat lands ready 

 for the seeding. 



During all this period of relatively cheap wheat and flour 

 it is estimated that one- third of the earth's population 

 has subsisted chiefly upon rice as a cheaper grain. It is 

 owing in part, also, to the large use of machinery to plow, 

 to reap and bind, to thresh and market the grain econom- 

 ically, so far as labor is concerned, that the prices have been 

 maintained at so low a level. With farm lands increasing 

 in value, and with a higher price for labor in the wheat- 

 growing districts, there is an increased cost of production. 



The need of labor is very great at the harvest seasons. 

 At other times a relatively few men with modern outfits 

 of farm machinery can give the necessary care to the largest 

 wheat farms. This condition does not operate to distribute 

 the population of the country, nor to make easy the problem 

 of bringing together the work that needs to be done in 

 agricultural districts and the men who are seeking work. 

 Where wheat raising can be carried on with corn growing, 

 and with other and diversified farm interests, the require- 

 ments for labor are better distributed throughout the year, 

 and employment is given to more persons the year 

 around. 



The large per cent of gluten in wheat gives it a food value 



