Super-Wheat

A clod, a piece of orange peel, The end of a cigar, Once trod on by a Princely heel How beautiful they are!

Of more than princely might are the heels of Signer Benito Mussolini, and last February they left a depression upon numerous clods as he plowed and sowed personally a small field of wheat on his farm near Forli, in the foothills of the Apennines. The iron features of Il Duce seemed those of a stern husbandman as he guided his old-fashioned plow drawn by two white oxen past purring cinema cameras; but to relieve and humanize the drama little Bruno, his younger son, straddled one of the oxen. Not until last week, however, did newsgatherers learn the impressive details of germination. . . . Despatches from Forli told that the sprouting shoots of Signer Mussolini "have already done so well that they are considered the best of the whole region. . . ." From the super-sower, super-wheat. Although wheat rust may yet blight the harvest, Fascist editors hinted broadly last week that the tender sproutlings of Il Duce will potently mature until the Ministry of National Economy will delight to honor him with a prize awarded each year to the husbandman whose average yield of wheat per ara* shows the greatest percentage of increase over that of his neighbors.

*100 square metres; 1/40 of an aeroe