Cavalier County farmers press. (Langdon, N.D.) 1920-1921, 1920-12-30
WHEAT ONCE WEED
Most important Cereal Has Been
Developed.
Exhaustive Researches Have Proved
That 1t Had a More Humble ORR
gin Than Any Other Known
Artificial Plant.

N original parents of all u
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
n Mediterranean regions.
Ihe pedigree of wheat, the most i'm.
portant of all our cereals, is somewhat
obscure. 1t has varied to q greater de-
gree from it's humble original than any
other known artificial plant. Fortu.
nately, we are still able to recover the
steps by which it has been developed
from what might at first sight appear
10 be a very unlikely and i~ll-endowed
ncestor indeed.
n English couch-grass, which
{ ten proves such a troublesome weed
iii our w 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 the wild form
OF our cultivated wheat. 1t is a small
dWarfish grass, with very petty seeds,
n not nearly so full a spike as the
cereals of agriculture.
When nan 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 r%e-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-dwell:
ers on the neighboring mainland. The
charred seeds and water-logged
shocks disinterred from the ruins of
the villages include millet, barley and
several other grains; but by far the
commonest among them is Il peculiar
small form of wheat, which has been
named scientifically after the ancient
ok by whom it was used.
This lake-Wlleat, however, though it
dates back to the very beginning OF
the period in Europe. cannot be con-
Sidered as the first variety developed
from the primitive g~oat-grass by the
earliest cultivators; it is so superior in
character to the wild stock that it
must already have undergone a long
course of tillage and selection in more
genial climates, and must have been
brought back to Europe in a compar-
atlvely perfect condition by the short
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 HE South. still better varie-
lie were being gradually developed by
careful selection and we find both
kinds side by side in some few in
stances; TINS showing ri!a! both were
grown together AT the same time by
races in different stages of civilization,
With the Introduction of these bet.
"a" binds Ia f." Geek aud Roman COZ.