They are anxious to know if bread is going to be cheap or dear. How much wheat is being planted? the world asks. But that doesn’t answer the question about bread, for many things may happen to wheat after it is in the ground.
How is the soil everywhere wheat grows? Is there enough rain? Or too much? Owners of railroads and ships are interested in the size of the next wheat crop, for they will have to carry the grain and flour across land and water. Owners of flour mills want to know how much they will have to grind, and what they will have to pay for it. Men who buy and sell wheat, owners of grain elevators who store wheat, bakers of bread and makers of breakfast foods and macaroni are interested, too. Village storekeepers are anxious to know if the farmers will have little money or a great deal to spend. Factories want to know how much goods to make, railroads how many grain cars they will need. Every farmer who grows wheat wants to know what other farmers are doing, and what his wheat will be worth. Wheat is so important that our government makes a crop report once a month. Corn and oats and other foods are put in, too, but wheat comes first.
From the fuss that is made about it, you would think the farmers were tucking precious babies into cradles when they put the little brown wheat seeds into the ground. Well, they are. The world wants to know every day how those seed babies are getting along. Wheat has as many troubles as human babies. In dry summers little chinch bugs feed on them. In cool, moist summers the tiny Hessian fly, only one-sixth inch long, lays eggs that hatch into little worms on them. Then there is the mildew and rust. In the spring, wheat needs rain of melting snow. At harvest time warm sunshine to dry the ripe grain.
Harvest time is exciting. Where do you think the excitement begins? Not in the wheat field where the grain is turning from green to gold, but in big city banks that may be a thousand miles away. The farmers must have a lot of money to pay men and machines to save the wheat. They go to the banks in the small towns where they trade, to borrow money. In a few weeks, when the wheat is sold, they can pay the money back. The little banks have to borrow money of the big city banks.
Come and see a big wheat farm in harvest time. It is a golden fleece as far as you can see. First come the reapers to shear the fleece. In the old days, and in many backward countries today,
