Corn Plants; Their Uses and Ways of Life (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1902 Excerpt: ... were from wheat and barley, it was very natural that these plants should come to have the name cerealia or cereals applied especially to them; and when other similar grains came into use, it was equally natural that they should be included under the same general name. Thus it was that the word came finally to have the wide sense in which we use it to-day. Other Com Rites and their Meaning. How came the Romans to have this story of Ceres and Proserpine? The fact is that they borrowed it from their neighbors, the Greeks. Long before the Romans began to hold their cereal festivals, the Greeks celebrated with even greater magnificence what were known as the "Eleusinian Mysteries." These were so called because the chief ceremonies took place at Eleusis, the home of Triptolemus, where, as the Greeks believed, this great benefactor of mankind had first established the worship of the goddess of grains. The celebration of these "Mysteries," which took place early in autumn, formed the great religious event of the year. It lasted many days, and the various ceremonies were arranged to commemorate in a striking manner the doings of the leading persons in the myth of the corn maiden. But most significant of all were the concluding rites, in which the worshipers were permitted to handle and taste the sacred symbols of the goddess, and finally amid profound silence beheld a living corn plant cut down by the priest. In the Hebrew Scriptures we read of the Israelites, at the yearly festival of the Passover, preparing, at Moses' command, unleavened bread in memory of their flight from Egypt; and also as part of the same celebration, bringing the first sheaf of the harvest as an offering to Jehovah. After the harvest was gathered came the festival of Pentecost or Harvest Feas...