INTRODUCTION. xili 



in time to take root and form root or radical leaves before winter sets in; it 

 ripens in July of the following year, and is called " winter wheat," because it 

 remains in the ground during the winter. 



Geography. — Wlieat, the most important of all the cereal family, has not 

 been found in what is considered the wild state, and though it has assumed 

 several forms or varieties, it has not so departed from the typical form as to 

 lead to the conclusion that it was ever what might be regarded as a weed. 



Wheat when planted north of the fiftieth parallel does not fruit ; neither 

 will it bear well south of 30° in America. In Europe, it fruits as high 

 as 51° in southern Russia, and as low as 37° in southern Italy. It is culti- 

 vated successfully in Turkey, Syria, northern and southern Africa, iJrazil, 

 Chile, Argentine Republic, and Australia. 



Etymology. — Triticum is from the Latin tero, rub, referring to the mode of 

 reducing the grain to flour. Vulgare, common, is from the Latin. The com- 

 mon name, wheat, is derived from the Sanscrit seveta, white, and is due to 

 the white flour produced from the grain. 



History. — No form of wheat has ever been found in a wild state. Its home 

 is believed to have been western Asia. It was brought to America by a negro 

 slave belonging to Cortes, and was first planted in Mexico. 



Cultivation. — Wheat will not grow upon poor soil nor thrive upon scanty 

 fare. It demands a deep, heavy soil, well tilled, and highly fertilized. In 

 the United States, especially in the rich soils of the Central States, fifty 

 bushels to the acre is not an unusual yield. 



Use. — Wheat is the bread grain of man in all regions of the earth where 

 it will grow. The straw is utilized for the manufacture of hats for both men 

 women. It furnishes the material for the fine leghorn hats and bonnets. 



Marts. — The great wheat markets are Odessa on the Black Sea, Riga on 

 the Baltic, all the north German ports, Constantinople, London, Liverpool, 

 Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Toronto. 



The building and structural material of the world is obtained 

 from about eighty genera, from twenty-five orders. Of these 

 eighty genera, thirty are cone-bearing plants ; hence the great- 

 est amount of building material is furnished by the Conifera?. 



We therefore choose for illustration one of its genera, the 

 Tsuga, which yields the Hemlock. 



Tsuga Canadensis. Carr. (Hemlock Spruce.) Trunk 50 to 100 feet in 

 height, branching freely. Bark gray, smooth on young trees, but very rough 

 and furrowed on old trees. Leaves solitary, flat, sliglitly toothed, blunt at the 

 apex, in two ranks, half an inch long, and less than an eighth of an inch wide. 

 Cones three fourths of an inch in length, and less than half an inch in diam- 

 eter; scales suborbicular, half an inch long; wing less than half an inch 

 broad. Flowers in June ; seed matures in the following year in June. 



Geography. — The geographical range of the hemlock is confined to a belt 

 on both sides of the forty-fifth parallel, in the Northern Hemisphere, reaching 



