130 TILLERS OF THE GROUND CHAP. 



The reason is that the cereals are cooked more easily 

 and are more digestible, and, therefore, better suited 

 to be eaten in quantity. 



In an earlier chapter we saw that there were 

 three great centres in the world where agriculture 

 began and cultivated plants were produced. It is 

 interesting to consider what were the chief seed- 

 producing plants in these three places. In the 

 great agricultural area at the eastern end of the 

 Mediterranean, the great seed-producing crops were 

 first barley and later wheat. In the warm parts of 

 America, the great food -plants were beans and 

 Indian corn. In the Far East, though wheat was 

 introduced into China very early, the most important 

 plants were rice and millet. 



Now of all these food-plants wheat seems to be 

 the best. It contains more nitrogen than rice or 

 maize ; it is more digestible than beans. It has 

 one great advantage over the other cereals in that 

 it contains a large amount of a sticky substance, 

 which enables it to be made into light bread easily. 

 We all know that oatmeal, for instance, cannot be 

 made into a proper dough Mke wheat flour. It is 

 this power of forming a dough which makes wheat 

 flour*so digestible. 



Now it is rather interesting to notice that so 

 far in the battle of civilisation the wheat -eaters 



r e won. Wheat was first grown in the Mediter- 



