CULTIVATED PLANTS. ]4y 



time of Silius Italicus, bur, was thought little of by the early 

 Romans, who wore chiefly woollen clothing, till the time of the 

 Empire, and even then its cultivation was not much favoured, in 

 the belief that it exhausted the soil. In modern Italy it has 

 been more generally grown, but still rather for local consumption 

 than for exportation. 



With regard to the origin of the species there is still consi- 

 derable doubt. Professor Targioni follows other botanists in 

 considering it as a common l^^uropean plant ; and it certainly is 

 found wild in most countries where it is or has been cultivated ; 

 but all the evidence we possess tends to show that (with the 

 characters assigned to the species by botanistsi it is evei-ywhere 

 rather escaped from cultivation than really wild. Planchon, the 

 last monographist of the genus, divides it into two species, 

 neither of them known in their original indigenous stations. 

 The species nearest allied, L. angustifolium, is indeed a common 

 European one ; but, amongst other characters, the differences in 

 the size and colour of the petals, generally constant among 

 Linums, prevent our pronouncing for their identity without 

 further evidence. 



Hemp (Cannabis sativa) is of East Indian origin. It is common 

 in the hills and mountains of Northern India, and was very early 

 cultivated throughout the East, though more for its intoxicating 

 properties than for the fibre. Herodotus mentions it as grown by 

 the Scythians, Dioscorides alludes to the strength of the ropes 

 made from its fibre, and Galen to its medicinal properties. It was 

 introduced into Italy by the Romans, apparently under the 

 Empire, and much later than flax. It is now an object of very 

 extensive culture in the plains of Lombardy, and in the Romagna. 



Cotton (Gossypium) was imported from India by the ancient 

 Egyptians, by the Greeks, and by the Romans, but appears never 

 to have been cultivated in Europe till the Moors introduced it 

 into Spain towards the twelfth century, although some assert 

 that it was already grown in Sicily in the eleventh century. 

 From Spain it waS' carried to Southern Italy, where thei'e was 

 much of it in the time of Porta, who died in 1515. Its culture is 

 still kept up in Calabria and about Naples, and under Napoleon's 

 continental regime it was in some measure profitable, but is now 

 of no importance. In Tuscany it has been repeatedly tried, but 

 as often abandoned, the crop being in that climate far too uncer- 

 tain to afford any chances of profit. 



Among tinctorial plants, Woad (Isatis tinctoria), much culti- 



