History of Wheat. 



79 



They occur in our day wherever wheat is grown, although they are 

 not always the predominant race. They are believed to have 

 formed the bulk of the " IIupoV' of the ancient Greeks and of 

 the Triticum of the Romans. Many finds in neolithic strata all 

 over Europe have been assigned to them, so that the Soft wheats 

 would appear to be as old as any. But there is this double diffi- 

 culty, that the descriptions of the ancients are too vague to guide 

 us, while the actual finds consist exclusively of loose grains, 

 varying very much in size and shape. Buschmann enumerated 

 not less than twenty-two places in Europe where prehistoric grains 

 assigned to Triticum vulgare — that is, the Soft wheat group — had 

 been discovered ; of these more than one-half (thirteen) belong to 

 the neolithic age. Considering, however, the difficulty of identify- 

 ing loose grains of these wheats, particularly if not very well 

 preserved, we have to be on our guard against hasty conclusions 

 concerning the dates and the extent of their cultivation in those 

 remote times ; in any case, they do not offer us a clue to their 

 descent. Structurally, they are, no doubt, closely allied to the 

 Hard wheats, but I doubt whether they have the same origin. 

 Schweinfurth remarks that all the old Egyptian grains of this 

 class which he saw were remarkably small. The same can be said 

 of most of the neolithic grains of Central Europe, and of the two 

 English prehistoric samples in the Kew Museum, while most of 

 these grains are at the same time comparatively stout. These 

 old small-grained races are probably nearer to the primitive form, 

 but if so the latter has not yet been discovered. 



With respect to the Dwarf wheats we are in a similar position. 

 Although at present nowhere extensively grown, to judge from 

 their present and past distribution they must have once been 

 grown over a much larger area. They are said to have been 

 found in several neolithic localities in Central Europe; here again 

 the finds, with two exceptions, consisted of grains only. These 

 exceptions are some ears and spikelets from the Swiss lake dwell- 

 ings, described by Heer as Triticum vulgare antiquorum, and some 

 spikelets from the same localities referred by him to Triticum 

 compactum. The latter resemble, according to Heer, the ordinary 

 Dwarf wheat of modern Switzerland so much that he did not 

 hesitate in identifying them with it. The other, however, his 

 Triticum vulgare antiquorum, is quite distinct. The ears, 

 although not intact, are splendidly preserved as far as they go. 

 Their grains— usually three to four in each spikelet — are very 

 small and stout. Other still more rounded grains from the neo- 

 lithic and Bronze period of Central and South Europe have been 

 described as Triticum compactum var. globiforme by Buschmann. 

 Here again we have, as in the Soft wheats, an indication that the 

 primitive form must have been, unlike Triticum dicoccoides, a 

 small- and probably stout-grained Triticum at present unknown. 



