BREAD OIJ BARBERRIES 



9 



There is a story that the first wheat seeds sown in America were 

 a few *rrains which one of Cortex's .slaves found mixed with some rwe 

 which had been hrou<rht from Spain. It is said tliat all the wheat 

 crops of Mexico started from tlie seeds saved and grown by that one 

 careful slave about 400 years a<;o. 



In the United States the first wheat is thou<rht to have been sown 

 on the Elizabeth Islands olf the coast of Massachusetts al)OUt three 

 and a quarter centuries ago. Later wheat was grown in Virginia. 

 George Washington owned what were in his time the largest wheat 

 fields in America, and there was no better Hour made in the world 

 than the Mount Vernon brand. 



For many good reasons wheat always has been a pioneer crop. It 

 grows well on new laml. It can be carried great distances and kept 

 for a long time without sj^oiling. Millions of people need it for food. 



0.— A licl.l 



>l" wheat that hns imt Ih'»ii rusted. This is th< 

 inlllcrs ncM'd In ordi-r to umkc good Hour 



kind of wht'iil our 



so it is easy to sell it. As families moved westward from Xew Eng- 

 land into Xew York and Ohio an<l then farthtM- on to AVisconsin, 

 Minnesota, and other parts of the Middle West, wheat often was the 

 first croj) gi-own al'tci' the land was j)Iowed. Later wheat was sown 

 on the newly broken land in the l*aeilic Coast States. Over much of 

 this great area wheat still is the most important croj). (Fig. 0.) 



For the people who grow wheat there is nuich toil and cost and 

 anxiety. The labor of jilowing and cultivating the ground, the ta^k 

 of sowing the seed, the long weeks of waiting while the wheat grows, 

 tlie uncertainty about weather conditions -all these exfjeriences must 

 come before there is a chanee for a harvest. 



It is not strange, therefore, thai when the giain is lipe men rejoice 

 to hear the noise of the reapeis or binders or the conibined haivester- 

 thresher giant moving acro.ss the great western wheat farms. Some 



