CULTIVATION OF WHEAT. 183 



viz., Lolium femulentum or the bearded darnel. Perhaps the bad 

 effects of this grass may have been exaggerated, but, according to 

 the best authorities, it acts as a narcotic-acrid poison, and there- 

 fore, is much more to be dreaded than any melilot. Instances 

 have been recorded of persons being intoxicated by eating the 

 bread in which the seeds of the darnel have been ground up 

 with the wheat, and it is reported that even fatal convulsions 

 have arisen from a similar cause. In Knight's Encyclopaedia, it 

 is stated : " According to Christison, darnel when mixed with 

 flour and made into bread, has been known to produce headache, 

 giddiness, somnolency, delirium, convulsions, paralysis, and even 

 death. A few years ago, the same author tells us, almost the 

 whole of Sheffield workhouse were attacked with symptoms sup- 

 posed to be produced by their oatmeal having been accidently 

 adulterated with lolium ; and a case is on record of a small farmer 

 near Poictiers in France, having killed himself by persevering in 

 the use of darnel flour for making bread ; his wife and servant, 

 who discontinued to eat it, escaped, but were violently affected by 

 vomiting and purging." There seems to be every probability 

 that this darnel or rye-grass is the "tare" of the Xew Testament. 

 The original word in St. Matthew is zizanion, a word no.t found 

 in any Greek author ; but the fact that a plant exists, called by 

 the Spaniards zizanion, and by the Arabs siwan, similar in every 

 respect to darnel, has induced modern commentators to conclude 

 that the " tare" mentioned in the parable is lolium temulentum. 

 The same word also may be traced in the Rabbinical word zinin, 

 which means hybrid wheat. Yolney, in alluding to the frequent 

 occurrence of this weed in Palestine and Syria, says, " The 

 peasants of these countries, lest they should lose a single grain 

 of the corn, do not cleanse away the seeds of the weeds from it, 

 and often leave the rye-grass, in Arabic called siwan amongst it, 

 which stuns people, and makes them giddy for some hours." 

 That this is really the " tare" of the Testament, is confirmed by 

 the fact that until the wheat is in the ear, the darnel is so much 

 like it as to be easily mistaken for it ; and also by the remarkable 

 custom preserved even to modern times, that both wheat and 

 darnel are suffered to grow together until harvest, when, as in the 

 days of old, the tares are bound in bundles to burn them, whilst 

 the wheat is gathered into the barn ! 



