CHAPTER XX 



OUR CULTIVATED PLANTS 



Origin. It is a matter of common knowledge that all the 

 plants at present cultivated in the world have been derived 

 from wild ancestors. In some cases the very species from 

 which they originated are still in existence, but more fre- 

 quently the plants have been so long in cultivation, or have 

 been so greatly changed by this process, that the species from 

 which they have been derived are not to be recognized, and 

 even the place of origin of some is unknown. The manner in 

 which the selection of these plants first began is easily imagined. 

 Owing to the tendency of plants to vary, there must always 

 have appeared, here and there in the wild, plants that bore 

 superior fruits and seeds. These even the wild man would 

 prefer and in time would come to protect both from the 

 encroachments of less desirable plants and from other wild 

 men who might wish to appropriate them. When it occurred 

 to some genius of that far-off time that the valued plant could 

 be better protected by removing it to the vicinity of his hut, 

 agriculture may be said to have begun. As more and more 

 plants came to be protected in this way, the best were naturally 

 selected, and so through hundreds or thousands of years our 

 grains have been bred from wild grasses, our potherbs from 

 thick-leaved species with edible qualities, our fruits from the 

 smaller, less juicy, and poorly flavored forms of wood and 

 glen, and our seed crops from those plants which, either by 

 reason of their size, abundance, or the ease with which they 

 are gathered, offered a promising field for the grower. The 

 work has undoubtedly been helped along by sports that have 



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