CHAPTER XXII 



s 



SPELT OR DINKEL 



Triticum Spelta, L. Sp. PL 86 (1753). 

 Triticum Zea, Host. Gram. Austr. iii. 20, t. 29 (1805). 

 Spelta vulgaris, Scringe. Cer. eur. 76 (114) (1841). 

 Triticum vulgare spelta, Alef. Landw. Fl. 334 (1866). 

 Triticum sativum Spelta, Hackel. Nat. Pfl. ii. 81 (1887). 



THE word spelt in the genitive singular speltae occurs first in an edict 

 of the Emperor Diocletian (A.D. 301), where it is given as synonymous with 

 the Greek oXvpa. 



According to Hieronymus (A.D. 414), it is of Germanic origin, and was 

 used by the early inhabitants of the province of Pannonia (Hungary) for a 

 cereal which he considered the same as far of Latin authors. It is not 

 until the thirteenth century that a distinction is made between far and 

 spelta ; Crescentius, writing then, says that " far resembles spelt, but is 

 larger in the blade and grain " (Cres., lib. iii. cap. de Farre). 



There is little doubt that it is much more recent than Emmer (T. 

 dicoccurri) and Small Spelt (T. monococcuni), for no remains of it have been 

 found of Neolithic Age and none of Bronze Age, with the exception of a 

 doubtful example mentioned by Heer from the pile-dwellings of the 

 latter period in Switzerland. It is absent from Egyptian tombs, and all 

 the evidence at present available points to the conclusion that it was not 

 known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. I regard it as a segregate of 

 a hybrid between a wheat of the Emmer series (p. 342) and Aegilops 

 cylindrica (see p. 343), probably first obtained by the ancestors of the 

 ancient Germanic races who settled in the districts north of the Alps 

 where the cereal is still grown. 



At the present time in Italy Emmer is spoken of as farro or grano 

 farro, Common Spelt as spelta or spelda. 



Of the wheats with a brittle rachis Common Spelt or Dinkel is the 

 race most extensively grown. The greatest area is devoted to this crop 

 in Germany, where in 1901 it was grown on 314,671 hectares (over 777,000 

 acres), the largest proportion being found in Wiirtemberg, Bavaria, and 



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