Cereal Farming
11
France, and many other countries in both the
northern and the southern temperate zone.
Rye bread is a staple food in Germany and
in northern and central Russia; oatmeal in
Scotland ; barley bread in Norway, Sweden,
and northern Prussia; corn bread in Mexico,
Central America, Rumania, and Egypt; and
rice and millet for eight hundred million
people in India, China, Japan, and the East
Indies. As a rule the cereal most used in a
country is the one which produces the largest
crops with the least trouble.
How great crops are raised. Although the
crops that are raised today are not nearly so
large as the farmers wish, they are far larger
than were once raised. Ever since the days
when primitive man first began to cultivate
the bearded wild wheat which still grows on
the hills of Palestine, the farmers have been
making improvements in the cereals them-
selves and in the methods of raising them.
[n the first place, the early farmers tried
again and again to see what kind of crop
would grow best in their particular climate and soil, and what crop
was the best for food. Some are still trying to solve this problem.
For instance, the United States government cooperates with the
farmers in trying to find wheat that will withstand drought, corn
that can endure low temperature, and rice that will yield large Crops
with little or no irrigation.
Another problem was how to prevent the soil from losing its fertility.
Early in the history of agriculture man found out about the use of
animal fertilizers. Later he discovered that some crops, when plowed
under, would benefit the soil. When it was learned that soil can be
enriched by the use of substances known as commercial fertilizers,
— such as guano, lime, and phosphate rock, — the problem was to
discover the right kind and amount for each crop.
One of the chief ways of improving crops is to select the seed of
those plants that produce the best and largest crops. So great have
been the changes in the cereal plants that today a cornstalk, for ex-
ample, may be five to ten times as tall as its remote ancestor and
may produce ten to twenty times as much seed.
