STORING PACIFIC COAST WHEAT
In addition to bread-making wheat, certain varieties of grain known as macaroni wheat have a certain importance in the market. Several varieties are so hardy that they easily resist extremely cold winters; they will also grow in regions too dry for ordinary varieties. In this respect they are well adapted to the plains at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains. The only detriment is the lack of a steady market. Macaroni wheat has a very hard kernel and is rich in gluten. It is used mainly in the manufacture of macaroni paste, but in Europe, when mixed with three times its weight of ordinary soft wheat, it is much used in making flour. The small amount now grown in the United States is shipped mainly to France.
The yield of wheat varies partly with the rainfall, but the difference is due mainly to skill in cultivation. In western Europe it is from two to three times as great as in the United States; in Russia and India it is much less.[28]
The yearly consumption of wheat is increasing very rapidly both in the United States and in Europe; moreover, China is becoming a wheat-consuming country. In the United States the consumption is increasing so rapidly that unless either the acreage of the crop, or else the yield per acre, is materially increased, there will be no surplus for export after the year 1931.
THE WHEAT INDUSTRY—GRAIN ELEVATORS AT BUFFALO, NEW YORK
In the United States the acreage may be somewhat increased by the irrigation of arid lands now uncultivated, and by the reclamation of overflowed and swamp lands. There are far greater possibilities, however, in the employment of methods of cultivation which will double the rate of present yield. It is doubtful if there can be much increase of acreage in the States of the Mississippi Valley, where the acreage will of necessity be lessened rather than increased.