SOME OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF ECONOMIC BOTANY. 621 
tion by accident is no selection at all. Nowadays the new selections 
are based on analogy. One of the most striking illustrations of the 
modern method is afforded by the utilization of bamboo fiber for electric 
lamps. 
Some of the classes of useful plants must be passed by without pres- 
ent discussion, others alluded to slightly, while still other groups 
fairly representative of selection and improvement will be more fully 
described. In this latter class would naturally come, of course, the 
food plants known as 
I.—THE CEREALS. 
Let us look first at these. The species of grasses which yield these 
seed-like fruits, or, as we might call them for our purpose, seeds, are 
numerous;* 20 of them are cultivated largely in the Old World, but 
only six of them are likely to be very familiar to you, namely, wheat, 
rice, barley, oats, rye, and maize. The last of these is of American 
origin, despite doubts which have been cast upon it. It was not known 
in the Old World until after the discovery of the New. It has prob- 
ably been very long in cultivation. The others all belong to the Old 
World. Wheat and barley have been cultivated from the earliest 
times; according to De Candolle, the chief authority in these matters, 
about four thousand years. Later came rye and oats, both of which 
have been known in cultivation for at least two thousand years. Even 
the shorter of these periods gives time enough for wide variation, and 
as is to be expected there are numerous varieties of them all. For in- 
stance, Vilmorin, in 1880, figured sixty-six varieties of wheat with 
plainly distinguishable characters.t 
If the Chinese records are to be trusted, rice has been cultivated for 
a period much longer than that assigned by our history and traditions 
to the other cereals, and the varieties are correspondingly numerous. 
It is said that in Japan above three hundred varieties are grown on 
irrigated lands, and more than one hundred on uplands.¢ 
With the possible exception of rice, not one of the species of cereals 
is certainly known in the wild state.§ Now and then specimens have 
been gathered in the East which can be referred to the probable types 
from which our varieties have sprung, but doubt has been thrown 
upon every one of these cases. It has been shown conclusively that 
it is easy for a plant to escape from cultivation and persist in its new 
* In Dr. Sturtevant’s list, 88 species of Graminee are counted as food plants under 
cultivation, while the number of species in this order which can be or have been 
utilized as food amounts to 146. Our smaller number, 20, comprises only those which 
have been grown on a large scale anywhere. 
t In the Agricultural Museum at Poppelsdorf, 600 varieties are exhibited.” 
tE. L.S. in letter. Quoted from Seedsman’s catalogue. 
§ The best account of the early history of these and other cultivated plants can 
be found in the classical work of De Candolle ‘ Origine des Plantes Cultivées (Paris) 
translated in the International series, History of Cultivated Plants (N. Y.). The 
reader should consult also Darwin’s Animals and Plants under Domestication. 
