CULTIVATED PLANTS. 137 



very abundant wild in some parts of Southern Europe, and all 

 over Africa and India. Indeed, we believe it to be the opinion 

 of an eminent agrostologist who has shown the soundest judgment 

 in the investigation of East Indian and other Graviiiiem, an 

 opinion in which we fully concur, that the described species of 

 Sorghnm are mostly, if not all, mere varieties of the Soryhum 

 halepense, produced by extensive cultivation during a long series of 

 ages. 



Maize or Indian Com (Zea mays) now so widely spread over 

 the South of Europe, does not appear to have been introduced 

 from America till near a century after the discovery of that 

 continent, though mentioned as a valuable article of food in the 

 West Indies by several travellers of the 16th century ; it is shown 

 to have been still unknown in Spain at the close of that period, 

 and it was not until after the year 161 U that it found its way 

 through Spain and Sicily into Italy. Professor Targioni-Tozzetti 

 satisfactorily shows that all supposed mention of this grain by 

 earlier writers before the discovery of America referred to other 

 kinds of grain, though under some of the names since given to the 

 Maize. We are not yet sufficiently acquainted with the American 

 flora to ascertain, with any probability, what is the original 

 indigenous form of this, apparently, the earliest cultivated 

 American grain. 



Rice was in the year 1400 still only known in Italy as an article 

 of import from the East. Its cultivation was introduced into 

 Piedmont and Lombardy in the end of the 15th or commencement 

 of the 10th century, either directly from India by the Portuguese, 

 or through Spain and Naples by the Spaniards. Some of the 

 varieties now grown in India appear to be but little removed 

 from their wild prototype. 



The Sugar-Cane is merely alluded to because its cultivation 

 was attempted in Tuscany in the 16th century, but found totally 

 unsuited to the climate. Of Asiatic origin, where the wild type 

 is not uncommon, it was carried to the West Indies, and thence 

 introduced into Sicily in the time of the Saracens. It was also, 

 perhaps, for a short time cultivated in Calabria, a point which 

 has been much disputed, although of no importance, as no success 

 attended the experiment if made. 



Leguminous jdants, either as forage or as pulse, cover a wide 

 extent of the fields of Tuscany, and in the latter shape form a 

 much greater proportion of the food of the inhabitants than in our 

 own country. The introduction of most of the kinds into Italy 



