662 
parently peculiar nature,” remarks the author 
of the Useful Knowledge Society’s Treatise on 
British Husbandry, “have been introduced to 
Britain from other countries,—as the Egyptian, 
the Polish, the Siberian, the Zealand, and the 
Talavera wheats,—and additions are being con- 
stantly made to the stock from various parts of 
the world; but, although differing in the pro- 
portions which they contain of nutritive matter, 
as well as in some particulars connected with 
their growth, yet they have all sprung from one 
origin,—and, being composed of similar elements, 
they are applied to the same purpose. Botanists, 
indeed, class some of them as distinct species; 
thus, for instance, the Egyptian wheat produces 
several ears from the same stem, which is not 
the case with any other sort ; but, when repeat- 
edly sown upon poor land, its supernumerary 
ears become gradually diminished, and it at 
length loses all appearance of variety. In like 
manner, other kinds of wheat, produced in soils 
and climates more favourable to vegetation than 
our own, have flourished when first grown in 
this country, and have appeared to become ha- 
bituated to our atmosphere, yet in a series of 
years have degenerated; while other sorts, im- 
ported from a more northern climate, or taken 
from land of an inferior quality, have, on the 
contrary, been improved. The same circum- 
stance occurs with respect to those species gen- 
erally distinguished as winter and spring wheat; 
for although they seem, from their time of growth, 
to be of a different nature, yet one can be at 
pleasure transformed into the other by the com- 
mon means of culture. Thus, if winter wheat 
be sown in the month of February, or the begin- 
ning of March, a portion of it will ripen, though 
the lateral shoots will be weak, and the crop 
will only be moderate. If, however, the seed 
thus produced be sown the next spring, it will 
throw out stronger stems, will tiller with more 
luxuriance; and, if the operation be repeated in 
the following year, it will then be found con- 
verted into the nature of summer wheat. If, on 
the contrary, spring wheat be sown in the month 
of October, and the next winter prove severe, 
the crop will perish, or can only be saved if it 
be completely covered by a heavy fall of snow. 
Should the weather continue mild, the seed will 
then, however, produce a tolerable crop, which 
will ripen earlier than autumn wheat ; the seed 
obtained from it will in the following year take 
longer to ripen than that of the former season ; 
it will also tiller better, and partake so much 
more of the nature of the winter species, that, if 
sown in the month of May, it will not produce a 
crop. Thus, also, however early the true winter 
wheat may be sown in autumn, it will not produce 
stems in the same year; but the real spring wheat 
will do so if sown any time before midsummer.” 
Similar remarks might be made, with more or less 
force, respecting other supposed specific charac- 
ters,—either such comparatively broad ones as 
WHEAT. 
those which distinguish the Egyptian wheats 
from the common cultivated wheats, or such. 
comparatively narrow ones as those which dis- 
tinguish the .winter wheats from the spring 
wheats. Yet the instabilities and gradations in 
specific character, even though they were both 
greater and more numerous than they are, affect 
mainly the niceties of classification, and address 
themselves principally to systematic botanists; 
and they neither prevent mutational characters 
from being as true indexes of intrinsic constitu- 
tion and adaptations as fixed ones, nor ought to 
deter agriculturists from appreciating classifica- 
tions which, whether serviceable or worthless to 
the purposes of exact botanical science, may in 
some way or other be decidedly useful to the 
purposes of farming economy. 
The aggregate properties of the seeds and 
herbage and habit of wheats and wheat-grasses 
challenge a ready and useful classification of 
them into British cereal wheats, or such as may 
be profitably cultivated for their grain in Bri- 
tain,—foreign cereal wheats, or such as can be 
profitably cultivated for their grain in some other 
countries, but notin Britain,—economical herbage 
wheat-grasses, or such as may be profitably cul- 
tivated for their green forage or for pasture in 
Britain,—and weedy, noxious, and uninteresting 
wheat-grasses, or such as cannot be profitably 
cultivated for any purpose either in Britain or 
in other countries. Among the first of these 
classes are all the common winter wheats and | 
spring wheats, the square-eared, the turgid, the 
stiff, the Egyptian, the Polish, the Bengal, the zea, 
the spelt, and the one-eared wheats; among the 
second class are the proud, the Linnean, Geert- 
ner’s, the broad-spiked, the shell-seeded, the two- 
seeded, the dark-headed, Cevallos’s, Cienfuegos’s, 
Bauhin’s, the three-seeded, the small - veined, 
and the villous wheats; among the third class 
are the dog, the rushy, and the crested wheat- | 
grasses; and among the last class are the noto- 
rious couch-grass, the greater part of the agro- 
pyrum genus, and the Spanish, ey field, and 
squarrose wheat-grasses. 
The cereal wheats, iiroue hone all their spe- 
cies and varieties, possess a tendency, stronger 
in some kinds and weaker in others, when sown 
together either in mixture or in juxtaposition, 
to form hybrids and to effect an interfusion of 
characters. Yet, as to the great properties of at 
once texture of ear and grain, chemical compo- 
sition of seed, and economical adaptation to dif- 
ferent climates and uses, they readily admit of 
classification into hard wheats, soft wheats, and 
Polish wheats. “The hard wheats are the pro- 
duce of warm climates, such as Italy, Sicily, and 
Barbary; the soft wheats grow in the northern 
parts of Europe, as in Belgium, England, Den- 
mark, and Sweden; the Polish wheats grow in 
the country from which they derive their name, 
and are also hard wheats,—and it is from their 
external form that they are distinguished from 
