338 



CEREAL PLANTS. 



Chap. IX, 



given by palaeontologists of the first appearance, the increasing 

 rarity, and final extinction or modification of fossil species, 

 embedded in the successive stages of a geological formation. 



Finally, every one must judge for himself whether it is 

 more probable that the several forms of wheat, barley, r}^e, 

 and oats are descended from between ten and fifteen species, 

 most of which are now either unknown or extinct, or whether 

 they are descended from between four and eight species, 

 which may have either closely resembled our present cultivated 

 forms, or have been so widely different as to escape identifica- 

 tion. In this latter case we must conclude that man cultivated 

 the cereals at an enormously remote period, and that he 

 formerly practised some degree of selection, which in itself is 

 not improbable. We may, perhaps, further believe that, when 

 wheat was first cultivated the ears and grains increased 

 quickly in size, in the same manner as the roots of the wild 

 carrot and parsnip are known to increase quickly in bulk 

 under cultivation. 



Maize or Indian Corn: Zea ways. — Botanists are nearly unani- 

 mous that all the cultivated kinds belong to the same species. 

 It is undoubtedly 50 of American origin, and was grown by the 

 aborigines throughout the continent from New England to Chili. 

 Its cultivation must have been extremely ancient, for Tschadi 51 

 describes two kinds, now extinct or not known in Peru, which were 

 taken from tombs apparently prior to the dynasty of the Incas. 

 But there is even stronger evidence of antiquity, for I found on the 

 coast of Peru 52 heads of maize, together with eighteen species of 

 recent sea-shell, embedded in a beach which had been upraised at 

 least 85 feet above the level of the sea. In accordance with this 

 ancient cultivation, numerous American varieties have arisen. The 

 aboriginal form has not as yet been discovered in the wild state. 

 A peculiar kind, 53 in which the grains, instead of being naked, are 



50 See Alph. De Candolle's long dis- 

 cussion in his ' Geograph. Bot.,' p. 942. 

 With respect to New England, see Silli- 

 man's ' American Journal,' vol. xliv. 

 p. 99. 



51 ' Travels in Peru,' Eng. translat., 

 p. 177. 



52 ' Geolog. Observ. on S. America,' 

 1846, p. 49. 



53 This maize is figured in Bonafous' 

 magnificent work, ' Hist. Nat. du 

 Mais, 1836, PI. v. bis, and in the 



'Journal of Hort. Soc.,' vol. i., 1846, 

 p. 115, where an account is given of 

 the result of sowing the seed. A 

 young Guarany Indian, on seeing this 

 kind of maize, told Auguste St. Hilaire 

 {see De Candolle, ' Geograph. Bot.,' p. 

 951) that it grew wild in the humid 

 forests of his native land. Mr. 

 Teschemacher, in ' Proc. Boston Soc. 

 Hist.,' Oct. 19th, 1842, gives an 

 account of sowing the seed. 



