Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1920-03-11
Wheat Was Once a Weed.

cereals were grasses OF one kind or
other, often belonging to remotely diff
ferent groups, but almost all indigen-
Gus inhabitants OF the Central Asian
and Mediterranean regions.
| The pedigree OF wheat, the most
/ important of all our cereals, is some
J what ce7cure. IL has varied to a great
G.. Ire from its humble original
nan any other known artificial plant.
T.. .a.:ately, we are still able II recop-
er .he s;c?s by which it has been de-
yc!Cred from what might 1t first sight
appear to be a very unlikely and ill
endowed ancestor indeed.
The English couch-grass, which Of
ten proves such troublesome weed
in our own country, is represented
around the Mediterranean shores by
an allied genus OF annual plants known
as goat-grass; and one OF these weedy
goat-grasses has now been shown with
great probability to be wild form OF
our cultivated wheat 1t is a small
dwarflsh grass, with very petty seeds,
and not nearly so full spike as the
cereals of agriculture.
When man first reappears in north
ern Europe, after the great ice sheets
once more cleared away from the face
OF the land, we find him growing and
using a rude form Of wheat from the
earliest moment of his re-establish-
ment in the desolated plains. Among
| the pile-villages of the Swiss lakes,
which were inhabited by men Of the
newer stone age, we find side by side
with the polished flint axes and the
handmade pottery of the period sew
eral cereals raised by the lake-dwcll-
ers on the neighboring mainland. The
charred seeds and water-logged shocks
disinterred from the ruins Of the viii
lagos include millet, barley and sever
al other grains; but by far the COM
monest among them is = peculiar
small form of wheat, which has been
named scientifically after the ancient
| folk by whom it was used.
This lake wheat, however, though /,
dates back to the very beginning OF
the period in Europe, cannot be con-
sidered as the first variety developed
from the primitive goat-grass by the
earliest cultivatorS; it is so superior
| in character to the wild stock that i,
must already have undergone a long
course Of tillage and selection in moro
! genial climates, and must have been
brought back ts Europe in compar-
atively perfect condition by the shor;
dark people who settled our continent
Immediately after the termination OF
the glacial era.
From the neolithic time forward, the
! improved seed has continued to grow
bigger and bigger, both in the size OF
the shocks and/in the girth Of the in
dividual grains, until the present day
The original small lake wheat, indeed
fingered on in use in Switzerland and
the north down to the days of the
Roman conquest; but, meanwhile, in
Egypt and the South, still better varie.
ties were being gradually developed
by careful selection; and we find both
kinds side by side in some few in
! stances; thus showing that both were
grown together at the same time by
races in different stages of civiliza-
| ton.
With the Introduction of these bet
ter kinds by the Greek and Roman CO
onsts into Gaul and Britain, the old
lake-wheat became quite extinct. In
deed, in every case the cultivated seeds
and fruits which grew in neolithic
garden plots were much smaller thar
those of our own time, whereas the
wild seeds and wild fruits found I'm.
der the same circumstances are Just
as large as their congeners of the
present day. A lapse which makes
relatively little difference to the stable
wild weeds makes relatively great diff.
ferencos in the very plastic and care
full V selected cultivated plants.