GEAIN CONSERVATION 107 



I shall even venture, at the close of this lecture, to 

 make some practical suggestions which may perhaps 

 be found worthy of consideration by practical men. 



It is unnecessary to insist upon the fact that 

 mankind is to a very large extent — one might say 

 almost entirely — dependent upon cereals of various 

 kinds for those supplies of carbohydrates so neces- 

 sary for his existence. We know that even in 

 prehistoric times cereals were cultivated. As 

 regards the most important of them — wheat — the 

 great botanist, De CandoUe, tells us that " The 

 manifold names of ancient languages must, therefore, 

 be attributed to the extreme antiquity of its culture 

 in the temperate parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa 

 — an antiquity greater than that of the most ancient 

 languages," and that the Chinese, who grew wheat 

 2700 years before the commencement of the Chris- 

 tian era, considered it a gift direct from Heaven. 



The storage of cereal reserves for future use is 

 also a very ancient custom, originating no doubt 

 in the obvious necessity for making supplies last 

 over from one harvest to the next. At the present 

 day it is frequently necessary to store our cereals 

 for much longer periods than this. Certain com- 

 munities no longer depend entirely upon locally 

 grown grain. Certain countries are much better 

 suited for cereal production than others and supplies 

 have to be transported from the country of origin to 

 the place where they are to be consumed. Storage 



