XXXIV 
WHEAT IS A GRASS 
I SN’T IT ODD that, when men of science dig back into 
the ruins of lost civilizations of the Near East, upon 
which those of today were built, they always find the re¬ 
mains of one crop plant — wheat! 
Usually these remains are found in charred form be¬ 
cause charred articles are little given to decay and may 
remain unchanged for thousands of years. This wheat, 
as far back as students have been able to find it, has been 
about as well developed and has had as good kernels as 
the wheat of modern times. 
This latter fact shows that it was by no means new 
when it was used by these ancient peoples. 
Wheat, of course, was at one time a wild grass. Man 
came to grow it about his early home and to select the 
better sorts for planting. By selecting better seeds all 
the time, the quality of the grain was improved. Since 
it was highly developed in the time of the earliest civili¬ 
zations of which we know, it must even then have been 
cultivated a long time. 
There are wild grasses, now growing that bear much re¬ 
semblance to wheat, but none of the,se is enough like it to 
make it certain that it is the variety from which wheat 
originally came. Some hold that there is wild wheat now 
growing here and there. Others argue that if there is, it 
is cultivated wheat that has but recently got into the 
wild state. It seems pretty sure that cultivated wheat 
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