232 



WHEAT, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THAT GEOWN 

 IX TEE OTTAWA DISTEICT. 



William Scott. 



(Read 10th February, 18S5) 



The -wheat plant having been bi^ouglit to ns fi-oni other countries 

 and not being (as far as we know) a native of America, it becomes 

 necessary to speak of it first in a general way. It has not been found 

 growing wild in any country, but is a plant of cultivation. 



As an escape, it shows no persistency, and were its cultivation to 

 cease, it would speedily die out and vanish from the earth. Its origin 

 is still an unsolved problem. The grasses coming neai-est to it ai-e Triticum 

 repens (the creeping couch grass) of Great Britain, and the ^Eji- 

 lops ovata, a grass found growing wild in southern Europe. This latter 

 is accepted by some botanists as the ])arent of our cultivated wheat. 



Grant Allen claims that wheat ranks by descent as a degenerate 

 and degraded lily. Tliat it was at first a simple j)lant, without flowers. 

 After ages, it acquired those bright colours and beauty that rivalled 

 "Solomon in all his glory." Then 'it fell from its high estate and 

 became a rush, with dry, brownish flowers, then a wood-rush, and 

 finally a grass, when it had to toil for a living, and begun storing up 

 starch and gluten. 



De Condelle says that the Inilk of evidence goes to show tliat the 

 home of the wheat plant is in the country lying between the Persian 

 Gulf, the iMediterranean, Jilack and Caspian Seas. 



We know that wheat has been cultivated as far back as there are 

 records of man. The monuments of ancient Egypt, of an age previous 

 to the Shepherd Kings, who.se rule ended about 1600 B.C., and the 

 ancient books of the liebrews show that in those days it was already 

 well established, and whenever the ancient Egyptians or Greeks allude to 

 the introduction of wheat, tliey attribute it to some fabulous personage. 



The lake dwellers of Switzeiland cultivated a small variety of 

 wheat, a specimen of which, dug up at Backs, shows this piehistoric 

 vai'iety to have been cultivated down to the time of the Roman Con- 

 quest. 



