WHEAT. 385 



would mortgage their whole kingdoms, which 

 were as large as the counties of England, for 

 four or five hundred bushels of this grain, to 

 be paid the following harvest. 



It was observed by ancient, as well as mo- 

 dern writers, that wheat would grow with 

 cultivation in almost every part of the world ; 

 and as it is the plant most necessary to man- 

 kind, so it is the most general. It is found 

 to grow well not only in our temperate clime, 

 but also in very hot and very cold ones. The 

 abundant crops of wheat in America, Peru, 

 and Chili, prove this, as it was unknown in 

 those countries until introduced by the Eu- 

 ropeans. In Lapland it is cultivated as far as 

 sixty-eight or seventy degrees north latitude ; 

 and from " Humboldt's Personal Narrative 

 of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the 

 New Continent, ,, we learn, that in the vici- 

 nity of La Vittoria, at the moderate elevation 

 of two hundred and seventy-three toises above 

 the level of the ocean, he found some fields 

 of wheat mingled with plantations of sugar- 

 canes, coffee, and plantains. Except in the 

 Island of Cuba, this is almost the only in- 

 stance of wheat being cultivated in the equi- 

 noctial regions in large quantities on so small 

 an elevation. An acre near Vittoria yields 



VOL. II. 2 c 



