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Field Museum of Natural History 



DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY 

 Chicago. 1922 



Leaflet Number 3 





Wheat 



Mankind has undoubtedly always used the seed of 

 wild grasses for food. Some of these, indeed, furnish 

 very fair-sized grain and from such our cultivated 

 cereals are unquestionably derived, though we cannot 

 now always trace them to their respective wild proto- 

 types. An example of such a large-grained wild grass 

 is the recently discovered Wild Emmer of Palestine, 

 which is considered by some to represent the original 

 wild form from which certain of our cultivated wheats 

 were derived. 



Among the cereal grasses, wheat is by far the 

 most important to the western world. It was first 

 brought to this continent into Mexico by the Spaniards 

 in 1520, later into New England and into Virginia by 

 the early settlers. In Europe and in Asia it has been 

 grown for thousands of years. In Europe it has been 

 discovered in various places in remains of the later 

 Stone Age. It has been grown about the eastern end 

 of the Mediterranean and in Mesopotamia for at least 

 five or six thousand years. It was cultivated in Baby- 

 lonia and has been found in ancient Egyptian graves. 

 To the far east it was grown in ancient China, to the 

 south in India, and in Abyssinia in Africa. Its pres- 

 ence in several varieties even in Europe in pre-historic 

 times and its ancient wide distribution would seem to 

 be evidence that the beginning of its cultivation be- 



r longs to the earliest history of mankind. Unless the 

 cultivation of wheat was undertaken independently in 

 the various regions, its place of origin must be con- 



[17] 



