Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/329

] Heer has shown, there were no less than eight kinds of cereals.

Of these the first, peculiar from its small ear and small grain, was the most common: it lasted down to the Roman conquest of Switzerland, and then became extinct. The Egyptian wheat does not agree exactly with any existing variety, and was rarely grown. The two-rowed kind differs from all known varieties, while the one-rowed is only known in the Neolithic age by the presence of a single ear. The small six-rowed barley is probably the original form from which the common four-rowed barley has descended; the axes of the ears having become longer by cultivation through many ages, and the spikelets having been pushed farther asunder by the greater development of the grain.

Several of our most familiar seeds and fruits grew in the Neolithic gardens and orchards. All, however, were smaller than those now under cultivation, as well as nearer to the wild forms from which they descended. They were—

Peas (Pisum sativum, L.) Poppies (Papaver somniferum antiquum, Heer). Flax (Linum angustifolium, Hudson).