CHAPTER II. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS. 



Article I. — Regions where Cultivated Plants originated. 



In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the origin 

 of most of our cultivated species was unknown. Linnseus 

 made no efforts to discover it, and subsequent authors 

 merely copied the vague or erroneous expressions by 

 which he indicated their habitations. Alexander von 

 Humboldt expressed the true state of the science in 1807, 

 when he said, " The origin, the first home of the plants 

 most useful to man, and which have accompanied him 

 from the remotest epochs, is a secret as impenetrable as 

 the dwelling of all our domestic animals. . . . We do 

 not know what region produced spontaneously wheat, 

 barley, oats, and rye. The plants which constitute the 

 natural riches of all the inhabitants of the tropics, the 

 banana, the papaw, the manioc, and maize, have never 

 been found in a wild state. The potato presents the 

 same phenomenon." ^ 



At the present day, if a few cultivated species have 

 not yet been seen in a wild state, this is not the case with 

 the immense majority. We know at least, most fre- 

 quently, from what country they first came. This was 

 already the result of my work of 1855, which modern 

 more extensive research has confirmed in almost all 

 points. This research has been applied to 247 species,^ 



^ Essai siir la Geographic des Plant es, p. 28. 



^ Counting two or three forms which are perhaps rather very distinct 

 races. 



