16 BRITISH GRASSES. 



range, or might have if the hand of man was able to culti- 

 vate all the districts that are suitable. The valleys of the 

 Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio, if brought into culti- 

 vation, might furnish granaries for a hemisphere. The 

 same may be said of extensive tracts in South America 

 and Australia. Already it flourishes in North America, 

 in the corresponding climates to those which it favours 

 in Europe. 



Scientific men have been sorely puzzled to find the 

 native country of wheat. Its history extends far back 

 into ancient times, yet does not reveal its birthplace. 

 At the time of the Exodus, we read in Holy Writ that 

 " the wheat and the rye were smitten " by the plague of 

 the hail, " because they were grown up." Centuries 

 later, the Royal Psalmist, in lamenting the degeneracy 

 of his people, and depicting the good things which their 

 sin had taken away from them, says, " He should have 

 fed them with the finest of the wheat." In the works 

 of Theophrastus and Pliny, wheat is often mentioned as 

 used by the Greeks and Romans, and it has been found 

 enclosed in the coffins with Egyptian mummies. At 

 one time Asiatic Russia was supposed to be its native 

 country; then a similar plant was discovered by Stuart, 

 the traveller, in the interior of New South Wales, and 

 then the question was raised whether that were or were 

 not its true fatherland. 



Within the last few years, the experiments and obser- 

 vations of M. Esprit Eabre, of Agde, iu the south of 

 France, seems to prove that our agricultural wheats are 

 cultivated varieties of a set of grasses common in the 

 south of Europe, which botanists have uniformly re- 

 garded as belonging to a different genus, named JEgilops. 

 That genus is distinguished for the fragility of the 



