157 



The varieties of wheat met with in cultivation are more numerous 

 than those of any other kind of grain, and are supposed by some 

 botanical and agricultural authors to include at least two distinct 

 species, if not, indeed, a greater number. The distinctive features of 

 these are, however, far too indefinite to admit of our arriving at any 

 satisfactory conclusion respecting them from comparison ; hence only 

 three marked forms are presented among our figures, namely, Triticum 

 mstivum, Summer or Bearded Wheat, T. hybernum, Winter, Lammas, 

 or Beardless Wheat, and T. compositum, Branch-eared or Egyptian 

 Wheat. The English names of the first two, and especially in reference 

 to the bearded or beardless character, are very arbitrarily bestowed, 

 as some of the varieties of T. hybernum have comparatively long awns. 

 It is to the latter that the kinds of this most useful of all European 

 grains grown in the British islands nearly exclusively belong, the 

 varieties of T. cestivwm being better adapted to more southern and 

 drier climates. Those of both species, however, if species they 

 originally were, have been so crossed and multiplied that their natural 

 affinities to either, individually, are no longer traceable with any degree 

 of certainty ; and so diversified are the characters they present under 

 difference of climate, soU, and culture, as to render particular descrip- 

 tion unavailable. 



The origin of wheat is involved in equal obscurity with that of other 

 kinds of grain, and indeed of most plants the cultivation of which has 

 been carried on from very remote periods. Though alleged to be 

 found wild in various parts of Central and Western Asia, its association 

 with the permanent vegetation of those districts, otherwise than as an 

 accidental intruder, has never yet been determined. The supposed 

 derivation of our staple corn, by successive culture, from certain 

 species of western Asiatic and southern European grasses, belonging to 

 the genus Mgilops, as noticed in page 8 of the introduction to the 

 present volume, however plausible it may appear from the experiments 

 of M. Fabre and the advocates of his hypothesis, is far from being any 

 approach to the elucidation of the subject; his wheat, so called, being 

 not true wheat, but a hybrid production of corresponding class to many 

 of those which the advancing ingenuity of modern horticulturists is all 

 but daily bringing into existence. As our acquaintance with the 

 metamorphic capabilities of plants is very limited, there is still, however, 

 a possibility that farther observation and experiment may establish as 

 fact that which is, under present circumstances, problematical. 



The superiority of wheat, as a bread-corn, over every other kind of 

 cultivated grain, is indicated both by the result of chemical analysis 

 and the larger comparative quantity of flour which it yields. Thus 

 1 000 parts of barley contain 920 of nutritive substance ; of rye, 792 ; 

 of oats 743; and of the different kinds of wheat from 940 to 960; 

 while fourteen pounds of wheat yield thirteen pounds of flour, fourteen 

 pounds of barley only twelve pounds, and an equal quantity of oats no 

 more than eight pounds. Added to these considerations in favour of 

 wheat as an economical production, may be noted the higher rank 

 which its flour holds among the supporters of anunal life. This is 

 due to the large quantity of gluten it contains, amountmg to more than 



