202 MR STARK ON THE SUPPOSED PROGRESS OF HUMAN SOCIETY 



tural operations to produce them is not apparent ; and if it be supposed that the 

 pastoral tribes of the second stage were agriculturists to a certain extent, so as to 

 render the transition to the further cultivation of the soil a matter of slight change 

 in habits, then the characterizing this mixed state as a purely pastoral one, is not 

 in consonance with the stages theoretically marked out in the progress of civili- 

 zation. But there is no evidence of the Cerealia growing spontaneously to any 

 extent, even in those countries where the geographical range adapted to their 

 culture has been considered most favourable. The discovery by botanists of 

 plants of wheat, or barley, or oats, in particular situations, where men are or 

 have been, is no evidence of spontaneous production. In Europe none of the Ce- 

 realia are found growing spontaneously ; and even where seeds have been left on 

 the fields by accident, two or three years has been ascertained to be the limit of re- 

 production, at least as to wheat and barley. A single unfavourable season a pre- 

 mature frost (as M. BUREAU DE LA MALLE observes) might be sufficient to destroy 

 the uncultivated and ungathered grains in the greater part of Europe, and the spe- 

 cies be exterminated, were not the seeds collected and preserved by human care. 

 Similar atmospheric or other causes may act upon the Cerealia wherever cultiva- 

 ted, and hence the failure of observers to recognise the country where these plants, 

 so necessary to man, grow in spontaneous luxuriance. 



M. BUREAU DE LA MALL'E has besides remarked, that to ascertain the fact of 

 the cultivated grains growing spontaneously, would require the observation of 

 years. In the Bois de Boulogne, for instance, where some of the allied troops had 

 bivouacked, the seeds of the oat vegetated and reproduced from 1815 to 1819. 

 And travellers, finding wheat or barley growing, from a similar cause, in coun- 

 tries near the supposed natural habitat, or the places of their original cultivation, 

 might be wrong in recording, from one observation, that peculiar locality as the 

 native country of the plant. Nay, more than this, the evidence of even years of 

 reproduction would scarcely be sufficient to establish a country as the native or 

 original one of any of the cultivated grains ; for in the neighbourhood of Buenos 

 Ayres, the oat, introduced by Europeans, has been said to reproduce itself for 

 more than forty years. This statement is made on the authority of M. AUG. DE 

 ST HILAIRE, who for six years witnessed the fact. 



Of the identity of the presently cultivated species of wheat and barley with 

 the grains known under these names by the ancients, there is no sort of doubt ; 

 for, by the preservation of these grains in the monuments of Egypt, the fact has 

 been ascertained beyond all question. The wheat preserved in vessels found in 

 the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, and of which the colour and form are unaltered, 

 appeared to M. BELILLE and others perfectly indentical with modern wheat* 

 The culture of this grain has in Egypt been continuous for ages ; and the spikes of 



* Ann. des Sciences Nat. ix. 6l. 



