Wheat is the first cereal to be cultivated by man. In several places in the Middle East it is being sowed, tended and reaped soon after 8000 BC. The people of Jericho are the first known to have lived mainly from the cultivation of crops. Barley is grown within the following millennium.
American farmers: 5000 - 2500 BC
the cultivation of crops in America begins in the Tehuacan valley, southeast of the present-day Mexico City. Squash and chili are the earliest plants to be grown - soon followed by corn (or maize) and then by beans and gourds. These are all species which need to be individually planted, rather than their seeds being scattered or sown over broken ground. This is a distinction of importance in American history, for there are no animals in America at this time strong enough to pull a plough.
Rice is thought to have been cultivated considerably later, perhaps not until about 2500 BC. It is uncertain whether it is first grown as a crop in India or China.
Vines and olives: 4000-3500 BC: Grapes are probably first cultivated in the region of the Caspian sea, where the main grape vine, Vitis vinifera, is indigenous. From there the growing of grapes (always mainly for wine rather than eating) spreads through the Middle East and on through Anatolia to Greece. Wine is a familiar feature in the world of Homer. The Phoenicians take the vine to southern France and Spain in about the 8th century BC, and in the early centuries AD the Romans plant grapes in the Rhine valley. Grapes and olives are the two richest crops of the Mediterranean region. Olives, indigenous in the eastern Mediterranean, are relatively easy to gather in the wild. So the cultivation of olives begins slightly later than grapes. Even so, there is evidence that groves of olives are planted in Crete from about 3500 BC and around the eastern coast of the Mediterranan not much later. Over the centuries growing and pressing olives, to provide olive oil, are two activities which underpin the economic development of Mediterranean civilization.
Cotton, rice and sesame: 2500-1700 BC: The local produce of the Indus civilization includes three crops of great significance in subsequent history, each of which is possibly first cultivated here. Yarns of spun cotton have been found at Mohenjo-daro. There is evidence of the growing of rice in the region of Lothal. And sesame, the earliest plant to be used as a source of edible oil, also seems to make its first appearance here as an agricultural crop. Engravings of elephants on the Indus valley seals, sometimes with ropes around the body, suggests that this civilization is also the first to tame the world's most powerful beast of burden.
Sugar: 4th century BC: The cultivation of sugar cane, a plant probably indigenous in New Guinea, spreads through Southeast Asia in prehistoric times. The first mention of its use, crushed for its sweet juice, is in northern India in the 4th century BC. Both sugar and candy derive from Sanskrit words (sarkara, khanda). Sugar processed for use in solid form must wait for almost a millennium. The first certain reference to it is in Persia in the 6th century AD. The cultivation of sugar beet, by far the main source of sugar today, is a much later development - not really of significance until the Napoleonic wars.
Tea: 4th century BC: Tea, the leaf of a shrub of the camellia family indigenous to China, is probably the first plant to have been cultivated specifically as the basis for a non-alcoholic drink. Chinese legend dignifies its discovery with attractive but improbable stories from early times. However the pleasures of tea are clearly known by about 350 BC, when the word features in a Chinese dictionary.