The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1880-11-16
$ss SIoontisID Sin'rs.
HOUSE, FARM AND GARDEN.
A Short History Of Wheat.

The varieties of wheat are almost
numberless, and their characters vary
widely under the influence of cultivation
and climate. There are said to be 1870
distinct varieties In the museum of Cor
nell University. On the slopes of the
mountains of Mexico and Xalapa the lux
uriance of vegetation is such that wheat
does not form ears. In Japan, il Is said
the wheat has been so developed by the
japanese farmers, that no matter how
much manure is used, the straw will
not grow larger, though the length of
the ear increases. The height is rarely
more than two feet, and often not more
than twenty inches. Through selection
winter wheat has been changed to sum-
mer wheat in three years, and summer
winter wheat. In general, wheat is the
most esteemed of cereal productions,
but in Abyssinia, according to Parkyns,
the flour of the "teff,, or 'dugassa, "
scarcely palatable to Europeans, is pre-
ferred by the natives to any other grain.
Isis was supposed to have introduced
wheat into Egypt, Demeter into Greece,
and the Emperor Chin Wong into China
about 5000 b. G. In Europe it was cul-
tivated before the period of history, as
samples have been recovered from the
lacuatsine dwellings of Switzerland. In
England it was probably not cultivated
by the ancient Britops, but the Anglo
Saxons when Bede wrote early in the
eighte century, sowed their wheat in
the spring, and in the days of Queen
Elizabeth its cultivation was but partial.
Indeed wheat was an article of compare
tive luxury till nearly the seventeenth
century. In India wheat seems to be
native, but introducers of its Sanscrit
name signifies " food of the barbarian -
yet three varieties are mentioned in the
Bhavaprakasa, one of which, is large
grained, it is said to have come from the
West, and another, small-grained or
beardless wheat is said to have been in
digenous to Middle India.
The first wheat raised in the "New
World'' was sown by the Spaniards on
the island of Isabella, in January, 1894,
and on March 80 the ears were gathered.
The foundation of the wheat harvest of
Mexico is said to have been three or four
grains carefully cultivated in 1880, and
preserved by slave of Cortez. The
crop of Quito was raised by Francis
can monk in front Of the convent. Gar
cilasso de la Verga affirms that in Peru,
up to 1547, wheaton bread had not been
sold at Cusco. Wheat was first sown by
Gosnold on Cuttyunk, one of Elizabeth's
islands in Buzzard's Bay, off Massachu-
sets, in 1902, when he first explored the
coast. In 1904, on the island of st.
Croix, near Calais, Me-, the Sieur de
Monts had some wheat sown, which
fiourished finely. In 1911 the first
wheat appears to have been sown in
Virginia. In 1926 samples of wheat
grown in the Dutch colony at New
Netherlands were shown in Holland
1t is probable that wheat was sown in
the Plymouth colony prior to 1919,
though we find no record of it, and in
1929 wheat was ordered from England
to be used as seed. In l71S wheat was
introduced into the valley of the Missis-
sippi by the Western Company
In 1893 it was among the cul ltivated
crops of the Simos Indians of the Celia,
river New Mexico.-liUers' Magazine.