. Beginnings in agriculture. Agriculture. WHEAT 147 It held a leading place in the middle colonies and was among the very few crops exported. The Pennsylvania millers gained a wide reputation for the excellence of their flour. Wheat was sown at Plymouth in 1621. It did not become an important crop in New England during colonial times. In 1838, great efforts were made to encourage the growing of it, and that year the Massachusetts legislature offered a bounty on wheat, which was paid to 3642 farmers on 108,570 bushels. Production. —• Wheat is now grown in nearly all civilized coun- tries. Vast
. Beginnings in agriculture. Agriculture. WHEAT 147 It held a leading place in the middle colonies and was among the very few crops exported. The Pennsylvania millers gained a wide reputation for the excellence of their flour. Wheat was sown at Plymouth in 1621. It did not become an important crop in New England during colonial times. In 1838, great efforts were made to encourage the growing of it, and that year the Massachusetts legislature offered a bounty on wheat, which was paid to 3642 farmers on 108,570 bushels. Production. —• Wheat is now grown in nearly all civilized coun- tries. Vast areas are planted in Russia, India, France, Austria- Hungary, Argentina, Canada, and the United States. Europe produces more wheat than any other continent, raising nearly twice as much as North and South America together. In 1909, the total product for the world was estimated as 3,624,418,000 bushels, of which 911,933,000 bushels were grown in North America. Wheat-growing has followed the westward movement of popu- lation in the United States. In 1850, New York was one of the leading wheat-producing states. At that time, the four states which now produce the most wheat were, with the exception of Ohio, still unsettled. Now New York raises very little wheat. Ohio, southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Kansas have each, in turn, led in the production of this crop. Western Canada has recently become a great wheat-grow- ing region. The wheat plant. — Let us bring a few wheat plants to school or, better still, go out \J. to a field of ripening wheat, and study the Fig. 68.—The wheat flower, habits of this plant. We shall find that, JwroTftsTh^e';'^ unlike the corn stalk, the wheat stalk is hollow, although occasionally it may contain more or less pith. W^e may wonder how the hollow stem is able to support the heavy head as it is swayed in the wind. It is because a hollow. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpubl, booksubjectagriculture
