His father, who seems to have been an intellectual but without much formal education, grew the hard red spring wheat of the northern prairies.

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Even so, in contrast to only ten years ago, the firms operating in Kansas City today are largely the same as those trading soft red winter wheat at the Chicago Board of Trade and spring wheat at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange.

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Mr. Taylor, for instance, will have to postpone planting some soybeans this spring until after the wheat is harvested, and that delay could cut into production.

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On either side of the river, however, running down the valley, there is a narrow strip of wheat fields and poppy fields, and for several weeks in the spring the poppies bloom: lovely, open-petalled white, pink, red, and magenta blossoms, the darker colors indicating the ones with the most opium.

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