THE WHEAT CULTTJRIST. 19 



cal emblem of civilization, enlightenment, and refine- 

 ment, J. H. Klippart, in his "Wheat Plant," writes 

 that: 



"As truly as did flocks of sheep in the primitive 

 ages lead the shepherds to the threshold of that truly 

 magnificent science, Astronomy, just so certainly did 

 the wheat plant in yet earlier ages induce man to forget 

 his savagism, abandon his nomadic life, to invent and 

 cultivate peaceful arts, and lead a rural and peace- 

 ful life. There is not on the vast expanse of the 

 face of the globe a savage, barbarous, or semi-civilized 

 nation that cultivates the wheat plant. In the settle- 

 ment of ~New England, the Indians called the plantain 

 the ' Englishman's foot ;' and in the infancy of society 

 wheat may have been similarly regarded as springing 

 from the footsteps of the Persians or Egyptians. 



" The ancients, who had burst the bonds of savag- 

 ism, and scarcely more than escaped from the confines 

 of barbarism, and through the magic influence of the 

 fruit of the wheat stalk, barely reached the threshold of 

 civilization, retained a grateful memory of the plant, 

 which was the prime cause of their amelioration. They 

 erected temples and instituted an appropriate rite for 

 the worship of the goddess Ceres, who was by them 

 regarded, not only as the patron goddess of the crops, 

 but the propitiator of sound morals, and the promoter 

 of peace and peaceful avocations. 



" In their traditions of the wars of the giants, the 

 ancient Germans have a legend, the purport of which 

 is, that Thor, the agriculturist, obtained possession of 

 the soil from Winter, who had depressed, brutalized, 

 scattered, and destroyed the inhabitants with his chill- 

 ing blasts and storms of sleet and snow, and drenching 



