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reeds of their great god Pan from the time of Ovid, 
and probably many centuries before (see “ Met.,” i. 677, 
and Virgil’s “Eel.,” i. 1). The grain does not appear 
to have been cultivated by our forefathers until the 
Bronze Age (“Lake-Dwellings,” p. 579), but was then 
used both as a food for horses, and for oaten cakes and 
oatmeal, and it has retained its popularity till the 
present time. The true oat is the Avena sativa , L. 
We have several native species of the order, as we 
have of barley and wheat. 
The rye ( Secale cereale , L.) is comparatively little 
grown to-day, and then only as food for cattle. The 
old-world rye bread has quite died out of use among 
us, though on the Continent it is still used. It is the 
black bread (Schwarzbrod) of the German peasants. 
Gerard says: “ It is harder to digest than wheat, 
yet to Rusticke bodies that can well digest it, it 
yields good nourishment.” Not only is it quoted 
in the general list of grain given above, but in As 
You Like It , V. iii. 23: 
Between the acres of the rye, 
These pretty country folks would lie 
—that is, on the grass strips between the ploughed 
acres and half-acres of the common fields. And 
again we get in the Tempest, IV. i. 136, 
Make holiday—your rye-straw hats put on, 
which sufficiently explains itself. 
The rye is not such an ancient cereal as barley, and 
scarcely appears until the Age of Bronze. 
The principal grain has ever been wheat— i.e. } 
white, in contradistinction to black oats and rye. 
We get the forms “hwsete” and “hvaiteis.” In the 
Stone Age it was largely grown, as, indeed, it had 
been for many centuries in Egypt, and we get several 
forms of the typical Triticum vulgare , Vill.—one a 
