154 



THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



1. 



(Grasses). 



Wheat, Barley, Meadow- 



The Grraminacse comprise the great 

 bulk of those plants which sup- 

 ply man and the lower animals 

 with food, for it contains all the 

 grasses and corn-bearing plants, 

 including rice, maize, wheat, 

 oats, barley, and rye. Upon 

 these all the Ruminants of the 

 earth feed, and millions of 

 human beings taste 110 other 

 kind of food. There are nearly 

 4000 species of graminaceous 

 plants, rice and maize being the 

 most broadly extended, forming 

 the chief food of the Chinese, 

 Hindoos, and other nations; 

 wheat is here the most valuable grain, and is now grown 

 in all parts of Europe and America. Humboldt, in his 

 "Views of Nature," gives an interesting account of 

 the first wheat grown in New Spain. He says : 



" A negro slave of the great Cortes was the first who 

 cultivated wheat in New Spain, from three seeds which 

 he found in some rice brought from Spain for the use 

 of the troops. In the Franciscan convent of Quito I 

 saw, preserved as a relic, the earthen vessel which had 

 contained the first wheat sown in Quito by the Fran- 

 ciscan monk Era Jodoco Bixi de Gante, a native of 

 Ghent in Flanders. The first crop was raised in front 

 of the convent, on the Plazuela di San Francisco, after 

 the wood which then extended from the foot of the 

 volcano of Pinchincha had been cleared. The monks, 

 whom I frequently visited at Quito, begged me to 

 explain the inscription, which, according to their con- 

 jecture, contained some hidden allusion to wheat. On 

 examining the vessel, I read in old German the words, 



" ' Let him who drinks from me ne'er forget his God.' 



