CULTIVATED GRAINS AND GRASSES 249 



All things considered, it seems to be one of those plants that 

 developed in a small area affording peculiarly favorable condi- 

 tions, and, it is altogether probable, was never widely dissem- 

 inated in the wild. It could not have been known at all in the 

 ancient eastern world, or it would certainly have been cultivated, 

 even though the people of those times depended far less upon 

 grain and more upon pasture for maintaining their animals than 

 we do, and though corn could never make its way for human 

 food where wheat could be grown. 



Oats. Two species of this grain are involved in the discussion, 

 the common oat (Avena sativa) and the side oat (A vena orien- 

 tates), in which the grains are all upon one side of the head. This 

 grain can by no means boast the antiquity of wheat and barley. 

 It was grown by the ancient Greeks under the name of bromus, 

 and by the Latins as avena. It has been found in the later lake 

 dwellings of Switzerland (not very old), but it does not seem to 

 have been grown by either the ancient Egyptians or the Hebrews. 



No other cultivated grain can so well maintain itself in the 

 uncultivated state, and for this reason oats have been found 

 growing wild in many separated regions of the world, but there 

 is little or no evidence that it is aboriginal in these places. 



Besides these cultivated races, however, there are a number 

 of closely related wild species which interest us, because it is 

 possible that from such as these oats were originally had. In 

 America we have both Avena striata and Avena smithii, both 

 distinctly oatlike wild perennials. The Gartner brothers of 

 England, who are among the greatest improvers of the oat, have 

 imported a "wild oat" from eastern Asia, which is sufficiently 

 close to the common oat to cross with it and to afford foundation 

 for selection and ultimate improvement. 



Rye (Secale cereale). Here at last we have a comparatively 

 new grain among us. Candolle says that it is not found in 

 Egyptian remains nor in those of the lake dwellers, that no 

 name for it exists in either the Semitic, Sanskrit, or Chinese 

 languages, and that the ancient Greeks did not know it. 



