. The book of wheat : an economic history and practical manual of the wheat industry. nd to procure the necessaries of life. With thetwentieth centuiy came a change, a change of such moment andspeed as to be without parallel in the economic history ofagriculture. The prosperity of the middle west transformeda million agricultural debtors into financially independentfarmers. Free land, free immigration, and free private enter-prise in railroad construction Avere the chief factors that ulti-mately led, not only to financial independence, but also to anew dignity and to a higher standard of livin
. The book of wheat : an economic history and practical manual of the wheat industry. nd to procure the necessaries of life. With thetwentieth centuiy came a change, a change of such moment andspeed as to be without parallel in the economic history ofagriculture. The prosperity of the middle west transformeda million agricultural debtors into financially independentfarmers. Free land, free immigration, and free private enter-prise in railroad construction Avere the chief factors that ulti-mately led, not only to financial independence, but also to anew dignity and to a higher standard of living. With thetelephone, the daily mail and newspaper, and means for travel-ing, a new horizon of comfort surmounts the skyline of thefarmers economic strength. This recent era of rural pros-perity augurs well for the nations future. IMPROVEMENT. Wheat Improvement Proper consists of artificially increasingthe natural variations of the wheat plant and its , it is unknown wliether the plant or the environ-ment was first the subject of improvement. The subsequent. IMPROVEMENT OF WHEAT 35 portion of this chapter is exclusively devoted to the plant, thetreatment of which naturally comes first. Variation.—It has been recognized for at least a centurythat wheat is capable of variations. These may be peculiar tothe plant itself, and may occur although the environment re-mains constant. Variation in this sense became establishedonly with the theory of evolution, and refers to those changeswhich tend to become permanent through inheritance. Suchvariations are assumed to be the manifestations of a naturaltendency inheient to all organic life. The theory of common descent for all living beings foundits first great advocator in Lamark at the beginning of thenineteenth century. Fifty years later Darwin assembled enoughevidence in support of the theory to enable it to gain generalacceptation. Darwin assumed that the great variation in-volved in the theory proceeded in t
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