Cereals

CEREALS. Barley and wheat are the only two grain foods that philologically deserve the name cereal. Oats, maize, rye and perhaps rice were discovered, or at least took an important place, after the word cereal was coined. It derives from the very pic turesque ceremonies, the Cerealia, by which the Romans cele brated the festival of Ceres, the goddess of corn. All the cereals have historic value. They have been one of the most potent in fluences in building civilizations at different dates in different parts of the world. Rice, much the least nutritious of all, is still the staple food of the crowded populations of India and Eastern Asia. The maize crop of the United States exceeds the aggregate of all the other grains and is pre-eminent in South America. There would be less cultivation and a much smaller population over wide districts of Siberia and Northern Europe, but for the discovery of rye, a native plant of Russia ; and oats, essentially the crop of the north, has long been the standard crop of northern farms of Europe and America. Scotland is a characteristic oat-growing country.

In the long run cultivators discover what crops best suit their own soil and climate. Rye will grow under conditions of drought and heat and poverty of soil that would prohibit the cultivation of any other cereal. It has the virtue of possessing a very tough straw, much used for the protective mats used by the intensive cultivators of vegetables. Though rice is the poorest of all cereals in feeding value and is troublesome to cultivate, it is grown over large tracts, because it flourishes under conditions of moisture that would not suit any other cereal. It would be impossible to convert many of the "paddy" fields of India into wheat fields, except by the help of costly draining schemes. Barley and oats will both flourish at a latitude too far north for wheat.

It can scarcely be doubted that the earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt were largely created by the exploitation of barley and wheat, food plants that put an end to the nomadic form of life, and, by the provision of a certain and highly yield ing food, gave more leisure for the development of the graces of life.

The Aristocrat of Grasses.

In the history of the cereal crops the outstanding fact is the slow but progressive dominance of wheat which is often known in Britain, though not in America, as corn. Wheat is the cereal of cereals; and it is so considered even where rice and maize are the standard crops. It is not the oldest cereal; nor the richest in nutriment nor the easiest to grow. All recent evidence goes to prove that barley preceded it. We know that both barley and millet were staple foods in Egypt in 6000 B.C., and it is more than probable that wheat was not so highly esteemed at that early period.

Barley then was the earliest grain. It was succeeded by spelt or emmer, from which was developed or selected the true wheat of our days (Triticum sativurn). The eminence of wheat has been chiefly due to the more palatable attributes of the flour; but it possesses all the qualities that have fostered each species of cereals. It gives a large yield. It is an annual, germinating and maturing very quickly, it can, to a great extent, dominate weeds and above all the garnered grain can be kept for long periods with out apparent loss of virtue. An excellent example of another quality of wheat, in comparison with other cereals, was supplied during the World War. A great number of American townships abjured the use of wheat altogether, at the urgency of their Department of Agriculture, in order that it might be shipped to their European allies. The reason for shipping wheat and not maize was that the grain travelled without danger of heating or any degeneration.

The progress of wheat, in spite of some setbacks, still proceeds. Its superiority over rice as a food is slowly becoming an accepted fact in China ; and if this preference grows it may exercise a con siderable influence on social development by restoring cereal cul tivation where it is being surrendered and developing a different form of agriculture both in Asia and Australia. All the cereals are of one botanical family. They are gramineous, like other plants of peculiar importance to humanity, the cane-sugar and the bamboo. Even cereals, usually harvested for their dried grain, are occasionally used as green fodder. The stalk and leaves of the maize are "clamped" and fed to stock here and there, even in southern England. Some few Australian farmers find the cutting of wheat in the green state the most lucrative form of harvesting; and the growing of an admixture of oats with rye or other grasses and clovers is a common and a growing practice.

In discussions on the extent and influence of cereals and in text books on agriculture insufficient importance is usually given to that form of millet (a word very loosely used) which is known botanically as sorghum, a plant that bears a close likeness to maize or Indian corn or "mealies." It takes the place of oats and barley over a great part of Asia Minor, is the staple crop in parts of tropical Africa and has extended its range both in Europe and Australia. Some of the Australian farmers in the north of New South Wales grow it for the stem and stalk, out of which domestic brooms are manufactured.

Historically Egypt and Babylonia are the best examples known to us of the influence of cereals on civilization. A contrary ex ample may be found in Australia. Though one species of millet is native to Queensland—some say—and rice is a native wild plant, the older black inhabitants never learnt agriculture and therefore remained nomad. Then owing to the difficulty of finding food they were often forced to keep their population small by artificial methods rigorously enforced by tribal laws.

The belief that the earliest civilizations were founded on cereal growing is supported by myth as well as history. Recent evidence is held to indicate that Egypt was the home of a rather earlier civilization than Mesopotamia; and a favourite Egyptian tale corroborates the view. Tradition says that Isis, the wife of Osiris, discovered barley (or one of the cereal grains) and her husband "eager to communicate these beneficent discoveries . . . travelled over the world diffusing the blessings of civilization wherever he went." It is remarkable that he is said to have taught specifically the brewing of beer from barley. (W. B. T.)