AGRICULTURE OF THE UNITED STATES. WHEAT AND FLOUR Part 3
Description
The original catalog description provided by the Ford Motor Company reads as follows: “Wheat is a grass plant which has been grown for bread since civilization began. More than one third of the human race live upon wheat.” Wheat field. “The best wheat soil is a light clay loam as in the prairies and in the Dakotas. The wheat soil was formerly plowed with horses.” Horses pulling a plow. “The plowing is more easily done with the iron horse.” Ford tractor drawn plow. “With the power plow, the soil is quickly prepared at the right time and pulverized by the harrow.” Ford tractor drawn harrow. “Formerly wheat was sown by hand, the seed carried in a bag on the left arm and with the right hand it was scattered on the ground.” Farmer hand-sowing wheat. “When the soil is mellow, the tractor sows the wheat with the seed drill. No seed is wasted, it is covered evenly.” “The winter wheat is sown in the fall, about October. The spring wheat in March.” Map showing spring wheat in North and South Dakota, Minnesota, eastern Wyoming and Montana, and southern Canada; winter wheat in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and eastern Colorado. “The Canadian thistle is a pest to wheat, for it spreads rapidly and causes much trouble in threshing. It also gets into the wheat and may be resown when the wheat is planted.” “The wheat is ready for harvesting in July.” “Formerly the wheat was cut by the cradle. This man harvests about three acres a day.” Farmer using hand cradle to cut wheat. “Each bundle is tied with a twisted rope of straw.” “This hand labor has been replaced by the binder, invented in 1851. It cuts and binds into bundles about 15 acres of wheat each day.” Horse-drawn wheat binder. “The binder drawn by the tractor harvests twice the amount of wheat at less cost.” “The wheat is ‘shocked,’ eight to ten bundles in each shock.” Agricultural laborers shock wheat. “The grain will sprout if left standing too long in the shock. It must be stacked or threshed.” “Pitching bundles on the wagon.” Tractor drawn wagon loaded by laborers. “The wheat is stacked to await the thresher.” “On the large farms, the grain is drawn direct to the threshing machine.” Power driven threshing machine in operation. “Each bundle is pitched into the thresher, where the straw and chaff is separated from the grain.” “This is the wheat when it goes into the thresher.” “This is the wheat after threshing.” “Wheat grains.” “Chaff.” “Straw.” “The straw and chaff are blown through this pipe to the stack. Boys once had to climb on the straw stack and work in the dust to keep it away from the thresher.” “The blower carries away the straw, as the golden grain fills the sacks.” “The trucks carry the wheat to the grain barn or the elevator.” “Each elevator will hold a million bushels or the crop from 200 farms 250 acres each.” Trucks unload sacks of wheat at grain elevator. “About 4½ bushels of wheat make one barrel of flour.” Illustration. “One barrel of flour will make 300 loaves of bread, which is the amount of bread each adult consumes in one year.” “Formerly to make wheat into flour it was ground between two stones.” Indian woman stone grinding grain. “In pioneer days a water power grist-mill was on every stream.” Grist mill located on a stream. “Two heavy mill stones grind the wheat into flour.” Mill stones in operation. “The modern flour mill contains no mill stones. The wheat is crushed between steel rollers. This mill makes 15,000 barrels of flour each day.” “Before going to the grinders the grains of wheat are cleaned and moistened with water. This causes the hull to be easily removed.” “After about five grinding processes the wheat becomes flour.” Wheat grinding processes. “From the grinders the flour is run through pipe conductors to the sacking machines.” Worker operates flour sacking machinery. “Behind each loaf there are acres of grain and days of toil; the iron horse and tireless mill carry and grind our daily bread.” [1922]
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