Buckwheat
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Buckwheat. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a cultivated grain related to the smartweeds and belonging to the Polygonaceae or buckwheat family. The Saracens are supposed to have brought it from Asia into Europe by way of Spain. It went for a time by the name of Saracen wheat; but the seed is so strikingly like the nuts of a beech tree that people of England gave it the name of beech wheat or buck-wheat. A similar name prevails among the Germans. There are two or three wild buckwheats, or, at least, near relatives, in America. One introduced from Europe is a troublesome vine in stubblefields. Buckwheat is not one of the extensive crops, but its cultivation is nevertheless quite general in this country and Europe. It is easily raised. It is as tender to frost as a tomato plant, but requires so short a growing season that it may be raised north of the Great Lakes . Buckwheat gains a footing in soil too poor for corn or wheat. It makes excellent fodder. It remains in constant bloom until cut down by frost. For this reason it is planted by many for the benefit of bees, but the honey is dark, and has a strong taste as compared with that made from the flowers of basswood and clover. Standing buckwheat is excellent food for poultry at large, and is quite as desirable when fed in the winter. It is not desirable feed for stock; but buckwheat flour, especially in cold weather, is regarded as indispensable for griddle cakes. Twenty-five states, all north of the Gulf States and east of the great plains, report a total annual production of 15,000,000 bushels of buckwheat. New York and Pennsylvania raise over two-thirds of the total amount; Michigan comes third; Maine fourth. See Cereals
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a plant, the polyonum . In the United States its fagopyrum a breakfast flour is extensively used as cakes dish in the shape of buckwheat . country is Asia, where it is Its native a bread corn. extensively cultivated as employed in the In Eur Europe its flour is , etc., and its making of bread, cakes horses and poultry. seeds for feeding the United States The total acreage in 34,000 less for 1919 was 790,000, about acreage (1913than the 5 year average bu. and 1917), producing 16,301,000 valued at over $24,000,000.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 figure of 15,000,000 bushels, with New York and Pennsylvania growing two-thirds of it, and Collier's 790,000 acres for 1919, describe a crop that then all but vanished from American fields; by the late 20th century US production had fallen to a small fraction of that, with North Dakota rather than the Northeast leading and much of the harvest shipped to Japan for soba noodles. Russia and China are now the world's dominant growers. The botany in both entries is also filed wrongly: buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is no grain but a relative of rhubarb and sorrel, and it is precisely its lack of gluten, ignored in 1910, that has driven its revival in health-food and specialty flours. Even the dark, strong-tasting honey the 1910 writer apologised for is now sold at a premium.
Written for this edition, 2026.