COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY 
PART I. INTRODUCTION 
CHAPTER I 
WHEAT 
If one should follow a handful of wheat from the yellow field, 
by wagon and freight car or ship, to the flouring mill, the pro- 
vision merchant, the bake oven, and the loaf of bread, he would 
understand one of the chief themes and acquire many of the 
principles of commercial geography. Food is the first need of 
man, and wheat, which has been called the ‘international 
grain,” is perhaps the most important of foods. We therefore 
study wheat for itself and for its general illustration of the laws 
of production and exchange. 
Ll. History of wheat. Wheat, like other cereals, belongs to 
the order of grasses. It has been modified from some wild 
grass, but the time when this improvement took place is beyond 
the memory of man, and the wheat plant as we know it has 
never been found growing in a wild state. Some scholars think 
it had its beginning in western Asia and spread eastward to 
China and westward to Egypt and the countries of Europe. 
The Swiss lake dwellers raised wheat before the days of writ- 
ten history, and it grew in the valley of the Nile from ancient 
times to the classic days when “corn ” ships sailed from Alex- 
andria to Rome. Wheat growing has now spread over Europe 
Wherever the climate permits, and the grain was brought in 
the sixteenth century to North America. As new lands have