THE ORIGIN OF WHEAT.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13644, 8 February 1913, Page 2

THE ORIGIN OF WHEAT.

An interesting discussion has been taking place in the "Christian World" on tho origin of wheat. A minister named the. R;;v. David Davio-s—ap-parently a countryman of Mr Lloyd Goorgo—recently made a point in a sermon of fact, a<j lie declared it tn be, that thoix* is no record of wheat ovj3r having been known in the wild form. In this', of courfio, it is an exception to tho usual rule. .Cabbages and cauliflowers arc, known to have boon .evolved by cultivation from tinwild brassica-, sweet, apples from the «our crab, ,and .so forth ; but, according to the cleric referred to, wheat was "miraculously created perfect at the beginning." iiotanically, wheat is a grass—'"l'ritiuum «ativum"

—ami

the latest edition of the Encyclopac*dia Brittauica .says it is nowhere found iv a wild condition. Tho writer, however, ;u.ld« that some of the species of the genus Aogilop (now generally referred t-o Tiiaieum by Bcntham and ITookoraiul by M«ecke;) may possibly have been the sources of our cultivated lonns; :«.s tiiey t-ross freoly with wheats. Hsoekol' considers that thon 1 are three .species, one of which, Tritisum moiiococcuin, undoul)t'edly grows wild in Greece and Mestopotamia, is cultivated in Spain and elsewhere, and was .also cultivated by the aboriginal Swis-s lako-dsvel.!oi\s as well as at Hissarlik, as is shown by the grain found in those localities.