A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Johann Beckmann

BUCK-WHEAT.

Grasses alone, and of these the seeds only of those which are so abundant in an eatable farinaceous substance that they deserve to be cultivated as food to man, are properly corn. Notwithstanding this definition, buck-wheat, which belongs to a kind of plants that grow wild in Europe, knot-grass, water-pepper, &c., because it is sown and employed like corn, is commonly reckoned to be corn also. Our wheat and oats, however, were not produced from indigenous grasses, as has been the opinion of some learned naturalists, who, nevertheless, were not botanists; nor has buck-wheat been produced from the above-mentioned wild plants[1287]. Both these assertions can be proved by the strongest botanical evidence; and the latter is supported by historical testimony, which cannot be adduced in regard to the proper species of corn, as they were used before the commencement of our history.

Two centuries ago, when botanists studied the ancients, and believed that they had been acquainted with and given names to all plants, some of them maintained that buck-wheat was their ocimum: others have considered it as the erysimum of Theophrastus; and some as the panicum or sesamum. All these opinions, however, are certainly false. It is indeed difficult to determine what plant the ocimum of the ancients was; but it may be easily proved that it was not buck-wheat, as Bock or Tragus[1288] has confidently asserted. The ocimum, or a species of that name, for it seems to have been applied to several vegetable productions, was a sweet-smelling plant, called also, at least by later writers, basilicum; one kind of ocimum had a thick, woody root[1289], and others possessed a strong medicinal virtue[1290]. The ancient writers on agriculture give it a place between the garden flowers and the odoriferous herbs[1291]; but none of these descriptions can be applied to our buck-wheat, which is both insipid and destitute of smell. Two unintelligible passages of an ancient writer on husbandry make ocimum to have been a plant used for fodder, or rather a kind of green fodder or meslin composed of various plants mixed together[1292]. The erysimum of Theophrastus produced seeds which had a very hot acrid taste[1293]; and he doubts whether it was eaten by cattle[1294]. Pliny says expressly that it ought to be classed rather among medicinal plants than those of the corn-kind[1295]; though Theophrastus has mentioned it more than once among the latter.

It is not worth the trouble to enter into an examination of more opinions of the like kind, as several respectable writers, who lived in the beginning of the sixteenth century, consider buck-wheat to be a plant first introduced into Europe in their time, though they are not all agreed in determining its native country. John Bruyerinus, or as he was properly called, La Bruyère-Champier, physician to Francis I., king of France, who in the year 1530 wrote his book, often printed, De Re Cibaria[1296], says that buck-wheat had been first brought to Europe a little before that time from Greece and Asia. That well-known botanist Ruellius[1297], who wrote in 1536, and Conrade Heresbach[1298], who died in 1576, give the same account. The latter calls the northern part of Asia the original country of this plant, or that from which it had a little before been brought to Germany. A nobleman of Brittany, whose book, Les Contes d’Eutrapel[1299], was printed after his death in 1587, remarks occasionally, that at the time when he wrote, buck-wheat had been introduced into France about sixty years, and that it had become the common food of the poor. Martin Schook[1300] wrote in 1661, that buck-wheat had been known in Flanders scarcely a hundred years. The old botanists, Lobelius, the brothers Bauhin, Matthiolus, and others, all assert that this grain was new in Europe[1301]. I shall here remark, that Crescentio, who lived in the thirteenth century, and described all the then known species of corn, makes no mention of buck-wheat. It undoubtedly acquired this name from the likeness which its seeds have to the fruit of the beech-tree[1302]; and in my opinion another name, that of Heidenkorn (heath-corn), by which it is known in Germany, has been given it because it thrives best in poor sandy soil where there is abundance of heath. From the epithets Turcicum and Saracenicum, its native country cannot be determined, for maize is called Turkish wheat, though it originally came from America. I consider also as improbable the conjecture of the learned Frisch[1303], that from the word Heide (a heathen), an expression little known in Upper Germany, has arisen the appellation of ethnicum[1304], and thence Saracenicum, given to this plant, though the Bohemians call it pohanka, from pohan, which signifies also a heathen.

There is reason to believe that this grain must have been common in many parts of Germany in the fifteenth century. In a bible, printed in Low-German, at Halberstadt, in the year 1522, entitled Biblia Dudesch, the translator, who is not known, but who is supposed to have been a catholic, translates a passage of Isaiah, chap. xxviii. ver. 25, which Luther translates er säet spelz, he soweth spelt, by the words he seyet bockwete, he soweth buck-wheat[1305]. The name heydenkorn occurs in a catalogue of plants so early as the year 1552[1306]; and Jos. Maaler, or Pictorius, has in his Dictionary, printed in octavo, at Zurich in 1561, Heidenkorn, Ocimum. I find there also, Heydel, a plant, Panicum. Dasypodius[1307] likewise in his Dictionary, of which I have the edition printed in 1537, says Panicum, Butzweyss, Heydel; and in a vocabulary of the names of plants added to it, Heydel, Panicum. Butz Weysz, Panicum. Frisch has the word Heydel-Fench, which he explains by Buck-wheat; and he remarks that in the Swiss dialect Buch is changed into Butz. Ryff or Rivius, a physician who lived in the middle of the sixteenth century, has changed Buch or Book into Bauch, and such errors often arise by transforming the High- into Low-German. It has, however, analogy in its favour, for the long o of the Low-German is in High-German often changed into au: for example, look, lauch; schmooken, smauchen; ook, auch; ooge, auge. But the long o of the Low-German becomes frequently the long u of the High-German; as good, gut; buch, buchbaum; book, bookbaum, &c.

That buck-wheat was cultivated in England about the year 1597, is proved by Gerard’s Herbal.

A new species of this grain has been made known of late years, under the name of Siberian buck-wheat, which appears by experience to have considerable advantages over the former. It was sent from Tartary to Petersburgh by the German botanists who travelled through that country in the beginning of the last century; and it has thence been dispersed over all Europe. We are however told in the new Swedish Economical Dictionary, that it was first brought to Finland by a soldier who had been a prisoner in Tartary[1308]. Linnæus received the first seeds, in 1737, from Gerber the botanist[1309], and described the plant in his Hortus Cliffortianus. After this it was mentioned by Ammann[1310], in 1739; but it must have been earlier known in Germany, at least in Swabia; for in 1733 it was growing in the garden of Dr. Ehrhart, at Memmingen[1311]. In Siberia this plant sows itself for four or five years by the grains that drop, but at the end of that time the land becomes so full of tares that it is choked, and must be sown afresh. Even in the œconomical gardens in Germany it is propagated in the same manner; and it deserves to be remarked that it grows wild among the corn near Arheilgen, a few miles from Darmstadt, though it is cultivated nowhere in the neighbourhood. Had it been indigenous there, Ehrhart might in 1733 have raised it from German seed.

The appellation of Saracenicum gives me occasion to add the following remark: Ruellius[1312] says, that in his time a plant had begun to be introduced into the gardens of France, but merely for ornament, called Saracen-millet, the seeds of which were brought to that country about fifteen years before. This millet, which was from five to six feet in height, was undoubtedly a Holcus, and perhaps the same kind as that sought after by us for cultivation a few years ago, under the name of Holcus sorghum[1313]. This Holcus, however, was cultivated, at least in Italy, long before the time of Ruellius; for there is little reason to doubt that it was the Milium indicum which was brought from India to that country in the time of Pliny[1314]. That ancient naturalist says it was a kind of millet seven feet high; that it had black seeds, and was productive almost beyond what could be believed. In the time of Herodotus it was cultivated at Babylon, but it must have been then little known to the Greeks; for that historian would not venture to mention its size and fertility, as he was afraid that his veracity might be called in question[1315]. According to his account, it grew to be as large as a tree. It is worthy of remark, that this kind of millet is still cultivated at Babylon, where it was seen and admired by Rauwolf[1316]. It is undoubtedly the monstrous Holcus mentioned by Apollonius, who considered it as one of the most remarkable productions of India[1317]. It appears that it continued to be cultivated by the Italians in the middle ages; for it was described in the thirteenth century by Crescentio, who speaks of its use and the method of rearing it[1318]. The seeds had some time before been brought from Italy to Germany, and we find that it is on that account called Italian millet. The old botanists named it also Sorgsamen and Sorgsaat; appellations formed from sorghum. The name Morhirse, under which it again came to us from Switzerland, in later times[1319], has arisen either from the black colour of one of the kinds, or it may signify the same as Moren-hirse (Moorish-millet), because it is almost the only corn of the sable Africans[1320]. However this may be, it can never become an object of common cultivation among us, for our summer is neither sufficiently long nor sufficiently warm, to bring it to perfection. Last summer (1787) I could with difficulty obtain a few ripe grains for seed.

[The cultivation of buck-wheat has never been very extensive in this country, as it will not bear the frosts of our springs or the severity of winter. The only counties in which it is grown to a moderate extent are Norfolk and Suffolk, where it is called brank. If a small patch is occasionally met with elsewhere, it is in general principally for the sake of encouraging game, particularly pheasants, which are extremely fond of it.

The seed of the buck-wheat is said to be excellent for horses, the flowers for bees, and the plant green for soiling cows, cattle, sheep, or swine. No grain seems so eagerly eaten by poultry, or makes them lay eggs so soon or so abundantly. The flour is fine and white, but from a deficiency in gluten does not make good fermented bread; it serves well, however, for pastry and cakes, and in Germany and Holland is extensively used, especially by the farmers, dressed in a variety of ways, among others as pancakes, which if eaten hot are light and pleasant, but become very heavy as they cool. A hasty pudding made of the flour with water or milk, and eaten with butter and sugar, is considered a favourite dainty.]