

AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



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The knowledge of the origin of cultivated plants is 

 rK interesting to agriculturists, to botanists, and even to 

 historians and philosophers concerned with the dawnings 

 v of civilization. 



I went into this question of origin in a chapter in my 



. ^ work on geographical botany ; but the book has become 



scarce, and, moreover, since 1855 important facts have 



^ been discovered by travellers, botanists, and archse- 



ologists. Instead of publishing a second edition, I have 



"" drawn up an entirely new and more extended work, 



I) which treats of the origin of almost double the number of 



^ species belonging to the tropics and the temperate zones. 



J]lt includes almost all plants which are cultivated, either 



/D on a large scale for economic purposes, or in orchards and 



y - kitchen gardens. 



I have always aimed at discovering the condition and 



CD the habitat of each species before it was cultivated. It 



02 was needful to this end to distinguish from among 



innumerable varieties that which should be regarded as 



the most ancient, and to find out from what quarter of 



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