68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



we may enumerate the following: turnip, onion, cabbage, purs- 

 lane, the large bean (Faha), chick-pea, lentil, and one species of 

 pea, garden pea. To these an antiquity of at least four thousand 

 years is ascribed. 



Next to these, in point of age, come the radish, carrot, beet, 

 garlic, garden cress and celery, lettuce, asparagus, and the leek. 

 Three or four leguminous seeds are to be placed in the same cate- 

 gory, as are also the black peppers. 



Of more recent introduction the most prominent are the pars- 

 nip, oyster-plant, parsley, artichoke, endive, and spinach. 



From these lists I have purposely omitted a few which belong 

 exclusively to the tropics, such as certain yams. 



The number of varieties of these vegetables is astounding. It 

 is, of course, impossible to discriminate between closely allied 

 varieties which have been introduced by gardeners and seedsmen 

 under different names, but which are essentially identical, and we 

 must therefore have recourse to a conservative authority, Vil- 

 morin,* from whose work a few examples have been selected. 

 The varieties which he accepts are sufficiently well distinguished 

 to admit of description, and in most instances of delineation, with- 

 out any danger of confusion. The potato has, he says, innumer- 

 able varieties, of which he accepts forty as easily distinguishable 

 and worthy of a place in a general list, but he adds also a list, 

 comprising, of course, synonyms, of thirty-two French, twenty- 

 six English, nineteen American, and eighteen German varieties. 

 The following numbers speak for themselves, all being selected 

 in the same careful manner as those of the potato : celery, more 

 than twenty ; carrot, more than thirty ; beet, radish, and potato, 

 more than forty ; lettuce and onion, more than fifty ; turnip, more 

 than seventy ; cabbage, kidney-bean, and garden pea, more than 

 one hundred. 



The amount of horticultural work which these numbers repre- 

 sent is enormous. Each variety established as a race (that is, a 

 variety which comes true to seed) has been evolved by the same 

 sort of patient care and waiting which we have seen is necessary 

 in the case of cereals, but the time of waiting has not been as a 

 general thing so long. 



You will permit me to quote from Vilmorin f also an account 

 of a common plant, which will show how wide is the range of 

 variation and how obscure are the indications in the wild plant 

 of its available possibilities. The example shows how completely 

 hidden are the potential variations useful to mankind : 



* Les riantes Potagh-cs, Vilmorin, Paris. Translated into English under the direc- 

 tion of W. r.obinson, Editor of the (London) Garden, 1885, and entitled The Vegetable 

 Garden. 



•)• Loc. cit., English edition, p. 104. 



