Among the materials used for making bread in our country—and, in fact, of all the known productions of the vegetable kingdom in any country, wheat is decidedly the best; and it is a remarkable fact, that wheat comes nearer to man than perhaps any other plant, in its power of becoming adapted to different climates, over a wide extent of the earth’s surface, so that it may almost be said that wherever the human species can flourish, there wheat can be cultivated. “It is not certainly known,” says Prof. Thomson, “in what country wheat was first produced. Mr. Bruce informs us that he found it growing wild in Abyssinia; and in his opinion, that kingdom is the native country of the plant. It would seem,” continues the Professor, “to be originally an African plant, since it thrives best in Barbary and Egypt; and perhaps the mountains of Abyssinia, though within the torrid zone, may not differ much in point of climate, from the more northern plains of Egypt. Wheat is perhaps cultivated over a greater extent of the globe than any other plant. Excellent crops are raised as far north as Sweden, in latitude 60°; it is cultivated in the East Indies, considerably within the limits of the torrid zone; and in the North of Hindostan, it constitutes a chief article in the food of the inhabitants. In India, however, the plant seems to have deteriorated. It is always dwarfish, and the crop is said to be less abundant than in more northern climates.” Yet a cold climate is not most genial to the nature of this plant. “The wheat of France is superior to that of England; the wheat of Italy is still better than that of France; and perhaps the best of all is raised in Barbary and Egypt.” Excellent wheat is raised in the southern, and western, and middle portions of the United States; and even in the northern and eastern parts of New England, very fine crops have been produced. But the wheat and other cultivated products of the vegetable kingdom appropriated to the nourishment of man, like those on which our domestic animals subsist, are too generally, in civilized life, very considerably deteriorated, as to their wholesomeness, by the improper tillage of the soil. I have no doubt that it is true, as stated by those who have made the experiment, that the flour of wheat, raised on a cultivated soil recently dressed with crude, stable manure, may readily be distinguished by its odor, from the flour of wheat raised on a new and undepraved soil, or from that raised on a cultivated soil which has been dressed with properly digested manure. And if such and similar results of improper tillage can become the sources of serious evil to the human family, through their effects on the flesh of animals which man devours, and on the milk and butter which he consumes, surely the immediate effects of such a deteriorated vegetable aliment on the human system, must be very considerable.