The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1920-01-20
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.

The original parents of all our
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 i'm
pOrtant Of all our cereals, is somewhat
obscure. 1t has varied to a 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
to be very unlikely and ill-endOwed
ancestor indeed.
The English couch-grass, which
often proves such a troublesome weed
in our own cOuntey, 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. It is a small
dwarfish grass, with very petty seeds,
and not nearly SO full a 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 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-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 a peculiar
small form of wheat, which has been
named scientifically after the ancient
folk by whom it was used.
This lake-wheat, however, though il
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 ii
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.
atfVely perfect condition by the short
| dark people who settled our continent
II %nIxy h. -
| the glacial era.
From the neolithfc 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 civilization
| With the introduction of these bet
| ter kinds by the Greek and Roman col
onists into Gaul and Britain, the old
lake-wheat became quite extinct. In
deed in every case the cultivated
seeds and fruits which grew in neo
| lithic garden plots were much smaller
than those of our own time, whereas
the wild seeds and wild fruits found
| under 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
| ferences in the very plastic and care
! fully selected cultivated plants
Grant Allen in Colin Clout's Calendar