CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 



wheat-lily. But we do know that wheat has 

 been a food for at least five thousand years. 

 We find it in the oldest tombs of Egypt and 

 pictured on the stones of the Pyramids. We 

 know that Solomon sent wheat as a present 

 to his friend, the King of Tyre; and we have 

 reason to believe that its first appearance was 

 in the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates, 

 near where the ancient city of Babylon rose 

 to greatness. 



Wheat is not a wild weed. It is a tame and 

 transient plant a plant of civilization. It 

 could not. continue to exist without man, and 

 man, perhaps, could not exist except in the 

 tropical countries without wheat. Each needs 

 the other. If the human race were to perish 

 from the face of the earth, wheat might survive 

 for three years, but no longer. So close has 

 this co-operation been between wheat and civil- 

 ized man, that an eminent German writer, Dr. 

 Gerland, maintains with a wealth of evidence 

 that wheat was the original cause of civilization, 

 partly because it was the first good and plentiful 

 food, and partly because it was wheat that 



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