Any one, who has the opportunity of observing a waste field during a
series of years, should make notes concerning the numerical proportions
of its inhabitants. Exact figures are not at all required; approximate
estimates will ordinarily prove to be sufficient, if only the standard
remains the same during the succeeding years.
The entire mass of historic evidence goes to prove that the same
conditions have always prevailed, from the very beginning of cultivation
up to the present time. The origin of the cultivation of cereals is to
be sought in central Asia. The recent researches of Solms Laubach show
it to be highly probable that the historic origin of the wheat
cultivated in China, is the same as that of the wheat of Egypt and
Europe. Remains of cereals are found in the graves of Egyptian mummies,
in the mounds of waste material of the lake-dwellings of Central Europe,
and figures of cereals are to be seen on old Roman coins. In the
sepulchre of King Ra-n-Woser of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt, who lived
about 2000 years B.C., two [105] tombs have recently been opened by the
German Oriental Society. In them were found quantities of the tares of
the _Triticum dicoccum_, one of the more primitive forms of wheat. In
other temples and pyramids and among the stones of the walls of Dashur
and El Kab studied by Unger, different species and varieties of cereals
were discovered in large quantities, that showed their identity with the
present prevailing cultivated races of Egypt.
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