THE KERNING OF THE WHEAT. 195 



millet, barley, and several other grains ; but by far the 

 commonest among them is a peculiar small form of 

 wheat, which has been named scientifically after the 

 ancient folk by whom it was used. 



This lake-wheat, however, though it dates back to 

 the very beginning of the recent period in Europe, 

 cannot be considered as the first variety developed from 

 the primitive goat-grass by the earliest cultivators ; it is 

 so superior in character to the wild stock that it must 

 already have undergone a long course of tillage and 

 selection in more genial climates, and must have been 

 brought back to Europe in a comparatively perfect con- 

 dition by the short dark people who settled our continent 

 immediately after the termination of the glacial era. 

 While the ice-sheet still spread over the face of England, 

 as it now spreads over the face of Greenland, the an- 

 cestors of the neolithic people must have been slowly 

 improving the breed of wheat somewhere among the 

 recesses of the central Asian plateau ; and by the time 

 the northern peninsulas and islands became once more 

 habitable, they must have returned to the vacant lands, 

 bringing with them the seeds of their goat-grass, now 

 advanced to the condition of the small lake- wheat. 

 This gulf has again been nearly bridged over for us by 

 the direct experiments conducted of late years in France 

 and at Cirencester. 



From the neolithic time forward, the improved seed 

 has continued to grow bigger and bigger, both in the 

 size of the shocks and in the girth of the individual 

 grains, until the present day. The original small lake- 

 wheat, indeed, lingered on in use in Switzerland and the 



north down to the days of the Roman conquest ; but 



o 2 



