SPELT (triticam spelta) is regarded as a distinct species from common wheat, and is supposed to be a cultivated form of cegilops candata, a native of the countries near the Mediterranean. The spikelets are smaller than in common wheat, and each spikelet has two or three, rarely four, perfect florets, besides a barren terminal one; the outer glumes and the paler are very broadly truncate at the top, and notched; the awns very slender; the ripened grain adheres closely to the palm or chaff. Spelt is supposed to he the grain called zea by the Greeks and far by the Romans. It is of little value in compari son with wheat, but can be grown on inferior soils, and is cultivated in Switzerland, at an elevation where wheat would not succeed. The bread made of it is coarse, and is used chiefly by the poorer classes.—Another species sometimes called LESSER SPELT, or ONE-GRAINED WHEAT (triticum monococcam), is also occasionally cultivated on poor soils, and in elevated situations in the center and a. of Europe. It is sometimes called St. Peter's corn. The ear is small and compressed, the spikelets contain only one per fect floret and a rudimentary one; the awns are long; the grain is small, and adheres closely to the chaff.— Triticum Bengalense may be regarded as a kind of spelt. It hasi remote spikelets, long awns, and long irregularly triangular grains. It is cultivated to some extent in India.
Wheat being the most esteemed of all the cereals, particularly for the making of bread, the increase of its cultivation and use has marked the progress of agriculture and of wealth in many countries, and particularly in Britain. It is only of late that bread made of wheat has become a common article of food among the laboring classes in Britain. In some parts of the country, it is still, indeed, far from being a principal article of food among the peasantry, who use barley and oats in various forms. In the 8th c., the monks of the abbey of St. Edmund, in England, ate barley-bread, because the income of the abbey would not admit of their using wheaten bread At a later period, wheat was largely used, at least in the southern parts of England, for a short time after harvest, but the supply was soon exhausted, and recourse was again had to inferior kinds of food. There was then no trade in corn to equalize the price over the year. In 1317, when an abundant harvest had been gathered in, the price of wheat fell at once from 80s. to Os. 8d. per quarter. The rejoicings of harvest-hotne were, there fore, in these times connected with a transition from poor to good fare, and from com parative want to abundance, such as happily does not attend the same occasion in our day. Down to the end of the 17th c., wheaten bread was a principal article of food only among the more wealthy; and the servants in their houses were still furnished with oats, barley, and rye. In the northern parts of England, as well as in Scotland, the use of wheaten bread was comparatively rare even at the middle of last century. " So small was the quantity of wheat used in the county of Cumberland," says Eden, in his History of the Poor (1797), " that it was only a rich family that used a peck of wheat in the course of the year, and that was used at Christmas. The usual treat for a stranger was a thick
oat-cake (called haver-bannock) and butter. An old laborer of 85 remarks that when he was a boy he was at Carlisle market with his father, and wishing to indulge himself with a penny loaf made of wheat-flour, lie searched for it for some time, but could not procure a piece of wheaten bread at any shop in the town." At the period of the revo lution, 1689, the quantity of wheat grown in England was estimated at about 14,000,000 bushels, or about three bushels to each of the population, which was then under five. mill ions. In 1828 about 100,000,000 bushels were produced, or about seven bushels to each of the population, then under fifteen millionss (see LOrary of Entertaining _Knowledge; Veg stable Substances used for the food of 3fan, Lond. 1832). In 1878 there were 3,143,054 acres under wheat in England and Wales, and 75,363 acres in Scotland, the produce of which may be estimated at about 100,000,000 bushels; besides which, a very large quantity of wheat is imported from other countries. The cultivation of wheat now extends to the most northern parts of Scotland, 3,164 acres having been under this crop in 1878 in the county of Elgin, and 4,162 in Ross and Cromarty, and even in Sutherland 91, and in Caithness 7 acres. The population of England and Scotland being now about 26,000,000, it appears that the quantity of home-grown wheat consumed amounts to nearly 4 bushels for each of the population; but the wheat imported in 1875 amounted to about 72,000,000 bushels; raising the amount consumed to nearly 7 bushels per bead of the population. Ireland is left out of account, as not being to a great extent either a wheat-growing or a wheat-consuming country. The produce per acre is greater in Britain than in any other wheat-growing country, owing to superior farming, notwithstanding disadvantages of climate and often of soil. The extent of land now under wheat has, however, of late years diminished, owing to the foreign supply, and the high price of butcher-meat making pasturage now profitable. The quantity of wheat produced in the States in 1877 was estimated at about 365,094,800 bushels. The chief wheat-growing states and their production in 1873 were—Iowa. 34,600,000 bushels; Illinois, 28,417,000 bush els; Minnesota, 28,056,000 bushels; Wisconsin, 26,322,000 bushels. The progress of wheat-cultivation in the western states has been extremely rapid. Iowa now produces more wheat than any other state of the union. In 1821 the total exports of wheat from the United States were valued at $178,314, and of wheat-flour at $4,298,043. The total exports of wheat in 1878 were valued at $96,872,016, and of wheat flour at $25,092,82i1. This rapid increase is due to the increase of wheat-culture in previously unsettled regions. The greater part of the wheat exported from North America is to Great Brit ain. Of the wheat imported into the United Kingdom in the year 1875, the United States contributed 45 per cent; Russia, 18 per cent; Germany, 12 per cent; British North America, 7 per cent; Egypt, 4 per cent; France, 2+ per cent; and Turkey, 2+ per cent.