266 AGRICULTURE ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 



let the children select several of the plants of each group, of 

 the growing of which one or several of them shall take special 

 charge, so as to make them definitely responsible for their 

 care. Such responsibility for particular cultures tends to 

 make the children more careful, and to make them emulate 

 each other in regard to the best results of their work. 



The ancestors of the plants we now cultivate in our 

 fields and gardens must have grown wild somewhere 

 before man took them under his care. But many of 

 those that have been long cultivated have been so 

 changed that if their wild ancestors are still to be 

 found, we fail to recognize them as such. Wheat is 

 one of the earliest known cultivated grain grasses, but 

 until recently we knew of no wild plant that we could 

 certainly claim as the original wild wheat. When we 

 speak of wild rye, oats; or barley, we mean grasses that 

 somewhat resemble these grains, but we have not been 

 able to convert them into our well-known grains by 

 cultivation within our time. We can only suppose that 

 the grains originated in the countries where the most 

 ancient history of mankind shows that they were cul- 

 tivated. Our Indian corn or maize is certainly an 

 American plant, but no wild maize is now found. In 

 the case of maize it is probable that a grass now grow- 

 ing wild but of wholly different appearance has been 

 changed into it by cultivation. 



We do know the wild forms of many of our field and 

 garden plants. The beet and asparagus grow wild on 



