WINNIPEG, 1909. 803 
wheats and Emmers from the wild wheat of Palestine also suggests the 
possibility of the evolution of Hard wheats from Emmers as the more 
primitive of the two series. Schweinfurth not only suggested this a few 
years ago, but he actually found in wheat from the tombs at Abusir in 
Egypt a few Emmer heads with partially tough spindles. More than 
that, the spindles were villous along their edges, as in some of the Hard 
wheats. Hard wheat represents no doubt one of the oldest races of wheat, 
although so far not many authenticated cases of very old finds have been 
recorded. Still it has been discovered in several Egyptian tombs, and at 
Hissarlik in a stratum overlying the ruins of Troy. Being essentially a 
warm-country wheat, it is not surprising that it has not been met with in 
the prehistoric strata of Central Europe. But probably this wheat spread 
early over the whole of North Africa, where, as also in Spain, it is repre- 
sented by very numerous races, Hard wheat is also found in Abyssinia, 
and eastwards as far as India, and, what is significant, accompanied in 
both countries by Emmer and forms intermediate between Emmer and 
Hard wheat. It may also have reached Southern Europe in remote times; 
but there seems to be no definite evidence, the earliest reliable records dating 
from the sixteenth century. 
We are better informed as to the early history of Emmer. According to 
Schweinfurth, Emmer and six-rowed barley were the common cereals of 
ancient Egypt, where the former has been found in considerable quantities 
and in an excellent state of preservation. At Abusir, for instance, Hmmer 
chaff was used along with other materials for filling up the tombshaft, 
and at Gebelén, in the tomb of Ani, Maspero found satchels made of 
grass and filled with fruits and Emmer spikes. These finds take us back to 
about 2000 B.c. Emmer is also recorded from the neolithic lake dwellings 
at Wangen and from those of Auvernier and the Petersinsel, all in Switzer- 
land, the last two being of Bronze Age. More recent but still dating back 
to the first centuries of our era is the Emmer of Aquileia. The ancient 
Romans and Greeks knew it, and there is now little doubt that it was the 
Adoreum or Far of the Romans and the Zed or "Odvpa of the Greeks, or at 
least of most of the Greek writers. In the famous Codex of Dioscorides at 
Vienna, an illustrated manuscript of Dioscorides’ Materia Medica, a wheat 
is figured to illustrete the paragraph on Xévdpos, a kind of pearl-barley 
prepared from the Ze& Sixoxkos and this wheat is apparently an Eimmer 
with a somewhat stout head. It is certainly not a Spelt p-over, Triticum 
Spelta, which is usually considered to have been Zed or ”“Odvpa of Greek 
literature. To-day the cultivation of Emmer is confined in Europe to a 
few districts in South Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, and Servia. 
In Egypt we find it mentioned under the name of T'riticwm Spelta as being 
grown near Alexandria until the forties of the last century; but since then 
it seems to have disappeared from there as from other parts of the Orient. 
On the other hand, it still has, as already stated, a hold in Abyssinia with 
its old and conservative civilisation, and to a very limited extent in India, 
where it was probably introduced long ago by Mohammedan traders. The 
Hard wheats lead us naturally to the so-called English wheats, or the 
Triticum turgidum stock, and the Polish wheats. 
The English wheats, like the Hard wheats, are warm-country wheats, 
and have no doubt the same origin. Schweinfurth mentions’ Triticum 
turgidwm among the cereals of ancient Egypt, and Unger believed he 
recognised it in a spindle fragment which he found in a brick from the 
walls of the ancient town of Eileythia. Beyond this there is practically 
nothing known about its early history. It has probably originated along 
with the Hard wheats. Still less is known in this respect about the Polish 
wheats. Koernicke, in his ‘ Handbuch der Getreidekunde,’ considered it as 
@ very distinct sub-species, which he opposed to all the other wheats taken 
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