I860.] ON THE TRANSMUTATION OF CEREALS. 79 



of the mode of cultivating barley), ' In like manner is the sowing of 

 the oat, which sown in autumn is partly cut for hay or fodder whilst 

 yet green, and partly it is protected for seed^ (lib. ii. cap. xi.). 



"Although only that one of the professed Eoman agricul- 

 tural writers mentions the oat, yet there are others of their au- 

 thors who specially mention it, though not in commendation. 

 Virgil twice speaks of ' steriles avenee,' Eclogue v. 37 ; Georgic 

 i. 154. Again, in the same Georgic, line 226, Virgil says, ^The 

 expected crop has disappointed them by yielding barren oats' 

 [vanis elusit avenis), alluding seemingly to an opinion enter- 

 tained by the Komans, and by Theophrastus at an earlier period, 

 that the oat is diseased wheat. Pliny says the oat ^is the chief 

 deformity of all wheat, and barley also degenerates into it, so 

 much so indeed that it has superseded wheat, and the people of 

 Germany sow it and make porridge of it alone' (xviii. 17). 



"That one species of the Graminece will take various forms 

 according as its culture is varied, can be sustained by many evi- 

 dences. M. Fabre^and others have improved JEgilops triticoides 

 by culture until it became wheat : and Mr. Morton, author of 

 the ' Cyclopaedia of Agriculture,' obtained both Potato and Tar- 

 tarian Oats after five or six years' cultivation from Avena fatua. 



"As it is possible to create, by cultivation, our corn plants 

 from inferior grasses, so we have evidence that those plants may 

 be transmuted stiU further. 



" Gerarde,' an irreproachable witness, saw oats and wheat 

 growing in the same ear. A gentleman told Dr. Lindley that 

 in Germany oats sown early and not allowed to produce ears the 

 first year, were found in the second year to yield other sorts of 

 corn. In 1843, the Marquis of Bristol tried the experiment. 

 Oats were sown and their stems continually stopped ; and in 1844 

 some produced a slender kind of barley, a few yielded wheat, and 

 some still produced oats. (Gardeners' Chronicle, 1844, p. 555). 



" In 1800, Dr. Anderson quoted an instance of a Dutchman 

 who cut his oats while green three times, and that when they 

 were allowed to seed they produced rye (Recreations, ii. 779) . 

 Similar changes are recorded in 1837 (Loudon's Mag. of Nat. 

 History) ; and Dr. Weisenborn, who repeatedly tried the ex- 

 periment, adds, ' Let any one sow the oats at the latter end of 

 June, and the transformation will certainly occur.' " 



