Evening star., 1916-12-10
Experimenting
With Wheat.

experimenting culture with various
With Wheat. kinds of wheat in
! e' order to find out just
how much there is in the new varieties
! and new names for old varieties which
are constantly appearing.
| 1t has been found that many of the
! new varieties are good. while some are
| not The good varieties are sometimes s
| advertised. II is said, being much
| better than they really are. On the
| other hand, it has been found that
varieties of little value are sometimes
| claimed to be the best of all.
! Experts of the department say that
! there are various ways by which the
| promoters of supposed new varieties
| interest their customers. Sometimes it
| IS story of wheat of mysterious or
! foreign origin: sometimes it is new
| or unusually developed character that
| is claimed. Examples of this are the
enormous tillering power claimed for
the so-called Miracle wheat. or the
wonderful productiveness claimed for
Alaska wheat Always however. the
| officials say, the yields are said to be
/ enormous. IT has been found that
| sometimes the same variety is ex-
plotted again and again under new
| name and with new and wonderful
story
/ After an investigation of the variety
experts of the department say that the
| So-called Alaska wheat is very old and
! has been promoted for more than a
! hundred years under one name or an
| other. and farmers throughout the
! country are still being misled. Among
the names that have already been at
! tached to this same wheat are: Egyp-
| iian. Eldorado, Jerusalem, Many headed
| Many-spiked Miracle, Multiple head
Mummy, Reed. Seventh eaded, Smyrna
| Wheat of Miracle, Wild Goose and
| others Like many other crops, it is
! hf.tI u Il
that it was introduced in colonial days
and there is evidence in the hands of
| the department to show that the Jeru-
salem wheat of 1907 was Identical with
! the Alaska wheat of the present time
/ The department has traced the name s
! of Egyptian, Miracle and Mummy all to
| one common story. The story varies in
! detail somewhat but in general it is
/ to the effect that when the coffin of an
Egyptian mummy 5000 or 1000 years
! old was opened some wheat was found
! Seed was planted. but only a single
! kernel grew. The resulting plant
! proved a wonderful yielder and very
| different from any wheat now known.
| This story. of course. is untrue and
! Impossible. inaSmuch as. stored under
! the mos. favorable conditions, seeds of
| wheat Will not keep their vitality more
I than a few years. No wheat thousands
| of years Old has ever been known TO
| germinate, but the story has served to
| sell much of this seed.
| 4 K
| That the sea once covered the great
plains and the larger part or all of the
Rocky mountains,
Geological History ofand that it re-
| the Great Plains. ,nns ,ha, tho
mud and sands deposited on its bottom
reached a thickness of more than mile
in the area now drained by the South
! Platte river is the assertion of experts
of the geological survey who have re-
Gently worked out in that vicinity.
/ When the pioneer gold seekers entered
| Colorado. nearly sixty years ago. they
| found the area east of the mountains a
| somewhat desolate grassy plain. over
| which herds of bisons and antelopes and
bands Of Indian hunters roamed Trees
grew only in narrow fringes along the
principal streams, and We're chiehy cot
tonwoods and box elders.
/ At present this area is in large part
the site of prosperous farms and orchards,
which produce greatly varied crops, es-
pecially sugar beets, potatoes and alfalfa.
Trees of many kinds have been planted,
and the whole aspect Of the landscape
has been so altered that the few sur
Viyors of the pioneers are FOND or telling
of the wonderful changes they have seen.
t it is truly wonderful that such changes
should have taken place in a single life
! time. but to the geologist changing
/ LANDSCAPES are commonplace. because the
records in The rocks enable him to recon-
/ str,,ct in Imagination the conditions that
prevailed in any area at different epochs
! in the distant past.
| 1t was as "A result of the study OF the
rock beds upturned along the eastern
hase of the mountains and of well records
farther out ON the plains that the ge-
olosists of the survey came to the con-
clusion that away back in cretaceous time
the sea covered that portion OF the couh-
try.
The latest deposits in this sea now form
the Fox Hills sandstone, which IS 500 TO
900 feet thick in northeastern Colorado,
and was evidently laid, the experts say.
| in n shallow sea in which there were
strong currents The Fox Hill sandstone
contains the remains of marine animals
and plants, especially OF certain sea