THE CALF PATH.

A calf walked home as good calves should But made a trail all bent askew,

A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.

But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my mortal tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way,
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep;
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o'er hill and glade
Through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out,

And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path;

But still they followed-do not laugh

The first migrations of that calf,

And through the winding wood way stalked, Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane

That bent and turned and turned again;

This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis.
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed the zigzag calf about,
And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.

A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent

To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They followed in the beaten track,
And out and in and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.
Ah, many things this tale might teach-
But I am not ordained to preach.

PART V. OUR LEADING AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.

THE CORN OF THE WORLD.

The term "corn " is applied in agriculture to the seed of the cereal plants. The word is often understood locally to mean that kind of cereal which is the leading crop of a country, and it may be wheat, barley, oats, maize (Indian corn), rye, millet, or even rice. It is written in Genesis: "And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn; because the famine was sore in the land." The grain mentioned in this quotation was probably wheat. Again, in Roman history we read of a great popular uprising because bread was scarce, and the Gracchi became great tribunes of the people because they advocated more favorable corn laws. The grain referred to was wheat. Rice is corn in China and Japan, rye in northern Europe, oats in Scotland, and wheat in England. Ruth gleaned ears of corn in the barley fields of Boaz, while in Pharaoh's wonderful dream the seven good ears of corn that devoured the seven thin and blasted ones were probably ears of wheat. In America an ear of corn means an ear of maize, or Indian corn, our national grain.

It was natural that the cereals should become the source of all our bread. They may be easily preserved, while tubers and bread fruits soon decay. Wheat, barley, oats, Indian corn, millet, and rye, if properly cared for, remain unhurt by cold climate, warm climate, dry climate, or damp climate. Hence their great value to the world.

THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF WHEAT.

It is impossible to ascertain definitely the geographical origin of wheat. It seems to have been a food for man since the beginning of history and to have developed as man has developed. Evidence points to the Valley of Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, as the birthplace of wheat, and from this center it is supposed to have spread to Phoenicia and to Egypt. The Chinese considered it a gift from heaven, and the Egyptians attributed its discovery to Isis. The most ancient languages mention it; it is found among the relics of the ancient Swiss lake dwellers; it was cultivated in China 3,000 years ago, and it was a chief crop among the ancient Hebrews.

It has been said before that all the cereals sprang from a kind of wild grass. Wheat, therefore, is related to all the other cereals, but in importance it has outclassed them all.

Wheat was not grown in the new world until after Columbus's discovery. Maize, or Indian corn, was the chief food of the Indians. It is said that a negro slave of Cortez found three or four grains of wheat in the rice which served as a food for the Spanish army. These were sown and thus wheat was introduced into Mexico. The first wheat sown in the United States was by Gosnold, in 1602, on the Elizabeth Islands, off the southern coast of Massachusetts. It was first cultivated in Virginia in 1611, and in the present State of New York by 1622.

It is easy to see that the migration of wheat has been closely connected with the migration of peoples. It is the one cereal that civilized people carry with them, and wherever they make their homes they quickly develop a variety that can be cultivated. This was especially true before the days of the railroad and the steamboat, when it was difficult to transport foods any great distance overland.

It is not as important, commercially, in America as Indian corn and does not adapt itself to new lands and changes in environment so readily. Corn was the main support of the early colonists and the pioneers, but wheat has followed the westward migration of population, and the center of wheat production to-day is in the Middle West.

Wheat is more widely cultivated than any other cereal. It is cultivated from the Arctic almost to the Antarctic circle and in every longitude of the globe, and there is not a month in the year that some nation is not harvesting it. It is interesting to observe when wheat is harvested in different countries:

January-Austria, New Zealand, Chile.

February and March-Upper Egypt and India.

April-Lower Egypt, India, Syria, Cyprus, Persia, Asia-Minor, Mexico, Cuba. May-Texas, Central Asia, and northern Africa.

June-Southern and trans-Rocky Mountain States of America, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal.

July-New England, Middle Atlantic and Northwestern States of America, Upper Canada, Roumania, Bulgaria, Austria, Hungary, Southern Russia, Germany, Switzerland, Southern England.

August-The far northwestern States of America, parts of Canada, Belgium,
Holland, Great Britain, Denmark, Poland, central Russia.

September and October-Scotland, Norway, northern Russia.
November-Peru, south Africa, northern Argentina.

December-Argentina, Burmah, New South Wales.

It will thus be seen that, since wheat is cultivated in so many different latitudes and altitudes, there must be a great number of varieties, and this is true.

THE VALUE OF WHEAT.

If a nation can be judged at all by its food, wheat would doubtless be the one grain that would serve as standard of measurement. It seems to be the tendency of the civilized world to raise its standard of living, and as it rises, wheat becomes a relatively more important part of human food. Rye and oats furnished the bread of the great body of people in Europe during the Middle Ages. Wheat was highpriced and not extensively grown. England early became a wheateating nation. France, Spain, and Italy followed later. Rye is still extensively used in Germany, but wheat is gradually superseding it. Russia is now using more wheat flour than she did 20 years ago. Taking the civilized world as a whole, therefore, wheat forms the principal food of man. It is much more widely distributed over the world than corn or rice. It is a prime necessity of civilized life, and the quantity milled is larger than that of all other cereals combined. Wheat is essentially a bread cereal. Not only does it have great superiority in sustaining life, but a large variety of healthful, palatable, and attractive foods are made from it, either wholly or in part. Breads, pastries, crackers, breakfast foods, macaroni-products of wheat in almost endless variety in composition, form, and appearance are found on the table and in the market.

Although it is the most valuable food for civilized man, its cultivation has had a wonderful influence on agriculture in general. It is more easily cultivated than any other cereal. Therefore, improved tools and modern machinery could be more easily invented for cultivating wheat than for cultivating any other cereal. From the crooked stick for plowing, we have come to modern drills, harrows, cultivators, reapers, thrashers, steam plows, and the combination of reaper and thrasher drawn by heavy engines. All these were first applied in the cultivation and harvesting of wheat, and modifications of them were made for the cultivation of other plants.

IN THE WHEAT FIELD.

When the lids of the virgin Dawn unclose,

When the earth is fair and the heavens are calm,

And the early breath of the wakening rose

Floats on the air in balm,

I stand breast-high in the pearly wheat

That ripples and thrills to a sportive breeze,
Borne over the field with its Hermes feet,

And its subtle odor of southern seas;

While out of the infinite azure deep
The flashing wings of the swallows sweep,
Buoyant and beautiful, wild and fleet,
Over the waves of the whispering wheat.

-PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE,