24 



THE WHEAT CULTURIST. 



maple trees of the valley shall have ceased to give us 

 sugar, the race of the little corn (wheat) sowers will 

 have exterminated the race of the flesh-eaters, provided 

 their huntsmen do not resolve to become sowers." 



BoTANicAi. Description of Wheat. 



Although this portion of my treatise on wheat may be 

 quite uninteresting to men who are solely practical, still 

 I think every ambitious farmer will be interested in the 

 botanical description of a plant so eminently valuable 

 as wheat. Boys in particular, I think, will be ambitious 

 to learn the names of the various parts of the growing 

 plant. 



That part of the wheat plant which farmers colloqui- 

 ally call the head or ear, is termed, botanically, a spike^ 

 as 14, in the accompanying illustration. A subdivision 

 of a spike, or ear, is called a sj)ilcelet. In some sections 

 of the country, a spikelet is better understood if it is 

 spoken of as a breast of wheat. At A, in the illustra- 

 tion, a three flowered spikelet is represented. B B are 

 the beards or awns. The ear 14 is called beardless, awn- 

 less, or bald wheat. At the right hand, 1 represents the 

 rachis^ or the centre of the ear, as it appears after the 

 grain and chaff are removed, either by thrashing, 

 or rubbing the ears in the hands. The spikelets are 

 placed on alternate sides of the rachis, so that the edges 

 of the florets, 5, 6, 10, in the spikelet. A, of the illus- 

 tration, lie toward each other. At 4, the glumes are 

 represented. At 13, a kernel of grain is shown. B, 2. 

 represents a kernel of wheat enclosed in the chaff ; or 

 such portions are spoken of as " ichite caps^ 



Certain kinds of wheat are remarkable for white caps, 



