68 OEIGLN" OF DOMESTIC PLANTS. 



jEgilojps ovata, a plant growing wild in Southern France, had 

 been actually converted into common wheat ; but, upon a repe- 

 tition of the experiments, later observers have declared that the 

 apparent change was only a case of temporary hybridation or fe- 

 cundation by the pollen of true wheat, and that the grass alleged 

 to be transformed into wheat could not be perpetuated as such 

 from its own seed. 



The very great modifications which cultivated plants are con- 

 stantly undergoing under our eyes, and the numerous varieties 

 and races wliich spring up among them, certainly countenance 

 the doctrine, that every domesticated vegetable, however de- 

 pendent upon human care for growth and propagation in its pres- 

 ent form, may have been really derived, by a long succession of 

 changes, from some wild plant not now perhaps much resembhng 

 it.* But it is, in every case, a question of evidence. The only 

 satisfactory proof that a given wild plant is identical with a given 

 garden or field vegetable, is the test of experiment, the actual 

 growing of the one from the seed of the other, or the conversion 

 of the one into the other by transplantation and change of condi- 

 tions.f It is hardly contended that any of the cereals, or other 



I * What is the possible limit of such changes, we do not know, but they may 

 '• doubtless be carried vastly beyond what experience has yet shown to be practi- 

 cable. Civilized man has experimented little on wild plants, and especially on 

 forest trees. He has indeed improved the fruit, and developed new varieties, 

 ; of the chestnut, by cultivation, and it is observed that our American f orest- 

 ' tree nuts and berries, such as the butternut and the wild mulberry, become 

 larger and better flavored in a single generation by planting and training. 

 (Bryant, Forest Trees, 1871, pp. 99, 115.) Why should not the industry and 

 ingenuity which have wrought such wonders in our horticulture and floricul- 

 ture produce analogous results when applied to the cultivation and ameliora- 

 tion of larger vegetables ? Might not, for instance, the ivory nut, the fruit of 

 I the Phytelophas macrocarpa, possibly be so increased in size as to serve nearly 

 I all the purposes of animal ivory now becoming so scarce ? Might not the 

 Tarious mUk-producing trees become, by cultivation, a really important source 

 of nutriment to the inhabitants of warm climates ? In short, there is room to 

 1 hope incalculable advantage from the exercise of human skill in the improve- 

 j ment of yet untamed forms of vegetable life. 



I f The poisonous wild parsnip of New England has been often asserted to be 

 I convertible into the common garden parsnip by cultivation, or rather to be 

 the same vegetable growing under different conditions, and it is said to be de- 

 prived of its deleterious qualities simply by an increased luxuriance of growth 

 in rich, tilled earth. WUd medicinal plants, so important in the rustic mate- 



