THE 



CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



DIVISION I. 



THE CEEEALS OR GRAIN CROPS. 

 PART I. WHEAT. 



CHAPTER FIRST. 



INTRODUCTORY. ORIGIN OF WHEAT. 



1. OF all the grain crops of the farm, wheat is the most 

 important, as being that chiefly on which man is dependent 

 as a food. In tracing the history of this invaluable plant, 

 we find that its origin is lost in the remotest antiquity. 

 In Holy Writ, and in the writings of classical authors, 

 we meet with abundant evidence of its wide-spread utility 

 as a food for man. Believing it to have been created spe- 

 cially for him, and starting into existence as complete in 

 itself as the acorn which grows upon the oak, it serves 

 little practical purpose to devote time to proving, or at- 

 tempting to prove, that the wheat plant has been developed 

 from an inferior grass. 



This development theory is no new thing. -The Greeks, 

 centuries ago, endeavouring to trace the origin of the wheat 

 plant, believed that they could trace its origin to the wheat- 

 like grasses which then, as now, were met with on the 

 shores of the Mediterranean, and which are known as the 



A 



