IM< HISTOKICAL NOTES ON 



vvarmei' climates of that continent, liad become cultivators for 

 ages before the wilder and more carnivorous hordes which 

 wandered over the colder regions of Europe, and that civilisation, 

 as it spread from the former over the latter, carried with it the 

 more useful Cerealia and fruits then known. But all were already 

 in a state of cultivation, that is, more or less modified by human 

 labour and skill. It seldom has occurred in modern days, still less 

 is it likely to have happened in early ages, that a wild plant has 

 been brought from a distant country to be grown in our own, for 

 the use of man. The conversion must have been gradual, and 

 generally, if not universally, in the district where the species was 

 indigenous. 



Wherever, therefore, the origin of a plant, cultivated in a 

 given country, is involved in doubt, all enquiries tending to clear 

 up that doubt must resolve into the following queries : — 



1, When was it first known to have been there cultivated ? 



y. In what countries, if any, was it previously cultivated, and 

 if so, when and how could it have been from thence transported ? 



3. What are the plants indigenous to the region where it was 

 first made use of, which could have been the wild origin of the 

 cultivated varieties ? 



The answers to the two first questions may be derived from 

 actual record, or from collateral historical evidence. But in 

 early ages agricultural and horticultural nomenclature was ex- 

 ceedingly vague, and the allusion to vegetable productions is often 

 so slight in ancient works, that it requires very great critical 

 acumen to form any plausible opinion as to the identity of the 

 plants mentioned. The conclusions come to require moreover 

 to be constantly checked by a judicious study as well of geogra- 

 phical botany and local floras, as of the general principles of 

 vegetable physiology as applied to horticultural and agricultural 

 metamorphosis ; and these geographical and pliysiological studies 

 can alone supply the answers to the third of our queries. 



Professor Targioni-Tozzetti's work applies more especially to 

 the two first questions ; and he has bestowed great pains in the 

 historical investigation of the more important species and 

 varieties now cultivated in Italy, and more especially in Tuscany. 

 He appears to have carefully consulted and critically examined 

 all the works bearing upon the subject which he had within his 

 reach, including the writings of tlie ancient Greeks and Romans, 

 those of Italian naturalists from the fifteenth century down to 

 our own dav, and a considei'ablc number of modern French. 



