132 TILLEES OF THE GKOUND CHAP. 



that it is only comparatively recently that wheaten 

 bread became the usual food of the Scottish people, 

 and in many parts of Germany a great deal of rye 

 bread is eaten still. At the same time it is 

 generally true that the peoples of Europe are wheat- 

 eaters ; they eat wheaten bread when they can. 



When the Spaniards conquered America, the 

 conquest meant practically the crushing of a bean- 

 and maize -eating people by a wheat -eating one. 

 All the countless fields of wheat, which are now 

 to be seen in America, show how completely the 

 Europeans took their love of wheat with them to 

 America. 



Hitherto also it has been true that the wheat- 

 eating peoples have, on the whole, been more 

 energetic and done a bigger share of the world's 

 work than the rice-eating people of the East, whose 

 diet is poorer and less digestible. It is one of the 

 interesting questions which the future must decide, 

 whether the Japanese and the Chinese will continue 

 to be largely rice-eaters, or whether they also will 

 learn our habit of eating large quantities of wheaten 

 bread, and if they do learn this, whether it will 

 make a difference in the kind of work they do. 



But we must go back to the important seed- 

 producing plants. Probably wheat is the most 

 important of all, but there are a great number of 

 others. In the Old World we have as other cereals 



