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Show III I HI I tsail ! I I igftr I ' ' luv UbIiIv urmm ',s? !" I ,'' - .Irf"""" C I ', jptjsrai UK story of hrend Is iW3k mo,e tluin ttty ccn" CjHav ttirles lotiR. One mlKlit j- - i Ma almost say that to know Ssssskl tllL 8,ory f ,,rc,u' ,s to 9 f Bl know the story of the j vVWJ world. As fur bnck ns Mg6gjJ history takes us there tfc3 was whent. At ono time ""111 '' lit the remote past, nu-thorltle.s nu-thorltle.s say, wlient was a wild Krass, iiiid the theory has been advanced that It Is n descendant of "wild cm-mer," cm-mer," traces of which are found even today, nmoiiK the rocks of upper Gall-lee, Gall-lee, In the vicinity of Mount Hermon. Tlte large fine Brains which now go to make up our dally bread are the result of ages of cultivation nnd Iho experiments of Innumerable Hur-banks, Hur-banks, men who made It their work to Improve upon the work of Nature. Enough of these grains were gathered from tho whent Ileitis of the United States In "11)20 to mnke something like 7CO.000.000 bushels. The average mind cannot conceive of such an enormous quantity of grain measured In this way. But nn Illustration Illus-tration may make It clearer. These seven hundred million bushels would fill enough freight enrs to make one continuous train from New York to San Francisco and back again, with n few hundred miles left over. The Staff of Life. Bread has rightly been called the stair of life, tho staff upon which strong nations lean. And, wherens we have cultivated tho taste for some foods now more or less In common use. we did not have to learn to eat wheat It came ns naturally ns the drinking of water. Man seems to have been born with a liking for hrend, and to eat It once Is to desire It ever afterwanl. We have heard the title "king" applied ap-plied to corn, but rightly It belongs to wheat ; for wheat contains all the fifteen essontlnl elements of nutrition nutri-tion nnd there Is probably no ono other article of food which will carry n man so far or so well. The people of the United States nro naturally great wheat eivters. Tho avornge per capita, after the grain Ims been turned Into flour. Is five bushels a year. It was In this country coun-try that wheat-raising received Its mighty Impetus through tho Invention of the reaper by Cyrus McCormlek. It was the reaper that made great wlient crops possible and cheap hrend a certainty in the United Stntos; and It Inevitably followed that we became the greatest eaters of whent In the world. All other nntlons followed our methods of cultivation nnd harvesting, har-vesting, nnd they, too, came to depend more upon wheat ns n food and to raise more of It. Every Day a Harvest. A writer has truly said that the sun never sets on the harvest Ileitis of the world ; In every month of the year wheat Is being hnrvested somewhere. In January It Is In tho Argentine nnd Now Zenlnnd ; In February and March It Is In East India, Upper Egypt, and Chill. April finds tho work going on In Lower Egypt, Asia Minor, nnd Mexico. Mex-ico. In May the harvesters are busy In Algiers, Central Asia, China, Japan nnd Texas. June sees them at work In the Holds of Turkey, Spain, Southern France, California, Tennessee, Virginia, ICen-turky, ICen-turky, Kansas. Utah and Missouri. When July comes the frirvost shifts to N'orthorn Franco, Itotunnnla, Austria-Hungary, Southern Itussla. South-em South-em England, Germany. Switzerland, anil, In the United States, In Oro'fon, Nebraska, Southern Minnesota, Wisconsin. Wis-consin. Colorado. Washington, the group of centrnl states. Now England find Eastern Camilla. August, perhaps per-haps the quietest month of the year, till finds plenty going on In Holland, Belgium, Orent Britain. Denmark. Poland, Po-land, the Dakotas, and Womtorn Can ada. In September the scene shifts to Scotland, Sweden, Norway, Northern North-ern Itussla, atid Siberia, and continues through October, November Is divided between South Africa nnd Peru, and December between Uruguay nnd Australia. Aus-tralia. All Nations Eat Wheat. While bread, In ono form or another, Is the chief food of all nntlons, they have various methods of making It. Even the Japanese, n rlce-etttlng people, mnke breud nice snowy loaves and many of the loaves are used only In festivals nnd at feasts. In Eastern Poland, where bread Is a very Important food, It can be purchased pur-chased In almost any size or shape big loaves nnd llttlo, large rolls nnd small, nnd a multitude of fancy shapes. The venders of hrend In this country display their wares out of doors. In baskets and on tables. The big rye loaves sold on the Enst Side of Now York, In tho crowded tenement districts, tire so large (hat they are frequently cut and sold by the pound. It Is almost ns much as a small boy can do to lug nnoif these loaves homo, nnd If he Is required to carry two he generally Impresses his little wagon or the family baby carriage car-riage Into service. Many Styles in Bread. Every nation makes Its bread somewhat some-what differently. In Berkovltsa, Bulgaria, Bul-garia, for Instance, the people hold a regular bread-making fest In the street. Tho women employ curious bread boards nbout 2 feet In illameler nnd supported on other boards a few Inches from the ground. The .dough Is rolled out on these boards with slender wooden rods nnd the result, after linking, Is n kind of gigantic cracker nn Inch or two thick. The women laugh and gossip ns they work, ninklng n sort of holiday of the aiTalr, while the children stand urouiid and look on expectantly. Tho Norwegian peasants make n similar kind of lint bread, the baking generally being done on a sheet of Iron placed on top of it heap of stones which nro kept hot by moans of n nest of glowing embers underneath. A little roller, with notches, something like a miniature carpet sweeper, Is used to llatten the dough nnd give the enkes of bread an ornamental ap pearance. Different Places, Different Bread. In Lebanon, Syria, tho native bread Is made In the street with the neighbors neigh-bors looking on. Much the same sort of utensil Is used as In Norway and tho baking likewise Is done on a sheet of metal with a lire underneath. The women of the family (it tend to the mixing of the dough nnd tho baking, while tho Job of the man is to keep up tho fire with twigs and chips of wood gathered wherever they can bo found. In Southern Europe young boys nro the principal venders of bread, currying curry-ing around large baskets filled with loaves of rye bread which the natives consider delicious. In San Salvador, Central America, the natives mnke tortilla, a thin, unleavened caku of maize, rolled out with a stone In tho shape of our own familiar rolling pin, nut! bnked on n heated Iron plate. In Caracas, Venezuela, the universal food takes a peculiar form. The rolls, which the city baker distributes, carrying car-rying l.s loatl around In two barrels swung across a sleepy-looking donkey, look like tiny canoes with ono end missing. Tho Peruvian Indians have queer little booths along the roads for the convenience of the hungry traveler, who will find there loaves shaped something like English miilllns and which nro better to out than their appearance ap-pearance would Indicate. |