CHAPTER XV 

 WHEAT 



White Bread. Nearly the entire wheat crop of 

 the world is used for human food. Wheat bread is 

 such a common food in our country now that we do 

 not realize that it is still .considered a great treat 

 by some classes of people in other parts of the 

 world. The poor peasants in many lands eat bread 

 made of rye, barley, or millet, because it is cheaper 

 than *^ white bread. ^' Millions of people in Asia 

 eat rice, but wheat flour makes a light bread that 

 is more healthful and tempting than that made by 

 any other grain; and as fast as the poor classes of 

 people can afford it, they demand wheat bread. 



The First Wheat Farmers. Who the first people 

 were to raise wheat we do not know, because it hap- 

 pened, like so many other interesting things, before 

 men learned to write. Neither do we know where 

 it first grew. The ancient lake-dwellers of Switzer- 

 lard raised a kind of grain very much like our 

 wheat. Some scholars believe that the early home 

 of wheat was in the Euphrates Valley, in western 

 Asia. Others think it first grew in Palestine. A 

 kind of wheat has lately been found growing wild 

 on the mountains of Palestine, and some people are 

 sure that our wheat has come from this wild kind. 

 Wheat was grown in China many hundred years 



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