. There the seed-wheat lies tucked up in its warm
brown bed till rain and sunshine call out the tiny green spears, and
coax them higher and stronger, and the hot sun of June and July ripens
the precious grain.

Then a great machine called a "header and thresher" is driven into
the field and sweeps through miles and miles of bending grain, cutting
swaths as wide as a street, and harvesting, threshing, and leaving
a long trail of sacked wheat ready to ship on the cars. Thirty-six
horses draw the header, and five or six men are needed to attend to
this giant, who bites off the grain, shakes out the kernels, throws
them into sacks and sews them up, all in one breath, as you might say.
The harvesters work from daylight to dusk, and three-fourths of our
wheat crop is gathered in this way.

Much golden straw is left, besides that which the "headers" burn as
fuel, and farmers stack this straw for cattle to nibble at. The stock
feed in the stubble fields, too, and strange visitors also come
to these ranches to pick up the scattered grains of wheat. These
strangers are wild white geese, in such large flocks that when feeding
they look like snow patches on the ground. They eat so much that often
they cannot fly and may be knocked over with clubs. In the spring
these geese must be driven away by watchmen with shot-guns to keep
them from pulling up the young grain.

The largest single wheat-field in California is on the banks of the
San Joaquin River, in Madera County. This covers twenty-five thousand
acres and is almost as flat as a floor. It is nearly a perfect square
in shape, and each side of the square is a little over six miles long.
There are no roads through this solid stretch of grain. Two hundred
men, a thousand horses, and many big machines are needed to work this
wheat-field.

Some of the big harvesters that cut and thresh the wheat are drawn by
a traction-engine instead of horses. In running a fifty-horse-power
engine high-priced coal had to be burnt but now the coal grates are
replaced by petroleum burners, and crude coal-oil is the cheap fuel.
This does not make sparks to set the fields on fire like burning coal
or straw and so is safer to use.

On large ranches wheat can be grown for less than a cent a pound,
while it has brought two cents or double the money when sold. But
there are not always good crops, as the grain needs plenty of moisture
in the spring when rains are uncertain.

The wheat crop of the sta