142 TILLERS OF THE GROUND CHAP. 



life of these ancient peoples has been reconstructed. 

 Though they had only stone tools, these people 

 managed to till the ground and to sow wheat and 

 peas. Though they are long since dead and gone, 

 yet some of the seeds which they dropped have 

 been found, and these have been examined carefully. 

 Even ears of wheat and barley have been preserved, 

 and from these we know that the grains these 

 people cultivated were smaller and poorer than 

 those our farmers now grow. The ears were 

 narrower and shorter, the individual grains smaller, 

 so that the yield of the little plots which they 

 cultivated must have been scanty. 



By infinite care a Swiss man of science has 

 succeeded in following down through the ages the 

 different kinds of grains in Switzerland. He has 

 shown that the first poor kind of wheat lasted 

 down to the Roman period, when it disappeared 

 for ever. He has shown also how other and better 

 varieties appeared gradually, replacing the old. 

 Thus, by the time the ancient inhabitants of 

 Switzerland had learnt to make tools of bronze 

 instead of stone, they had also learnt to grow 

 better kinds of wheat, especially that called spelt, 

 varieties of which are still grown in parts of 

 Europe. They had also added rye and oats to the 

 poor wheat and barley of the early days. 



Much the same thing is true of their peas and 



