Modern Business Geography 
EP CEC 
Ellsworth Huntington 
Fic. 29. Wheat harvesting in Turkestan. In Asiatic countries and in many parts of Europe 
wheat is still harvested with the sickle, as here, or with the scythe (Fig. 42). Behind the reaper 
follow the workers who tie the fallen stalks into sheaves, which are gathered into stacks that stand 
in the field until they can be carted to the threshing floor. There the grain is threshed by hand 
or by being trampled under the feet of animals and is then winnowed by hand. This is the way 
harvesting is shown on the Egyptian monuments, which record for us the wheat farming of forty 
centuries ago. 
for their wheat than do those in Nebraska and Kansas. This helps 
to pay for extra hand labor, but does not lead to large production. 
Satisfactions and anxieties of the wheat farmer. The wheat 
farmer, like every other farmer, has his special worries. If he plants 
winter wheat, he watches the weather carefully in the autumn to see 
whether the tiny plants will get enough rain to make them vigorous 
before the coming of winter. Then he looks for signs of the Hessian 
fly that attacks the wheat plant near the base, causing the leaves to 
turn yellow and die. He knows that if many flies appear in the 
autumn they may become so numerous in spring as to ruin the crop. 
Toward the end of winter the farmer watches his fields anxiously to 
see if there are many brown leaves, which would show that his wheat 
has been * winter killed.” But with the opening of spring, warmer 
weather and good rains cause the fields to turn green. Yet even in 
the spring the farmer’s troubles are not over, for after the grain has 
begun to grow rapidly, it may be injured by a severe storm. 
When the crop should be having good rains and the weather con- 
tinues fair, he watches every cloud as anxiously as does a boy on the 
morning of a championship baseball game; but the farmer hopes