376 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



lean all to one side, has also been grown in Europe from 

 the end of the eighteenth century. It is not known in a 

 wild state. Often mixed with common oats, it is not to 

 be distinguished from them at a glance. The names it 

 bears in Germany, Turkish or Hungarian oats, points to 

 a modern introduction from the East. Host gives a good 

 drawing of it (6rram. Austr., i. pi. 44). 



As all the varieties of oats are cultivated, and none 

 have been discovered in a truly wild state, it is very 

 probable that they are all derived from a single pre- 

 historic form, a native of eastern temperate Europe and 

 of Tartary. 



Common Millet Panicum miliaceum, Linnaeus. 



The cultivation of this plant is prehistoric in the 

 south of Europe, in Egypt, and in Asia. The Greeks 

 knew it by the name kegchros, and the Latins by that of 

 milium. 1 The Swiss lake-dwellers of the age of stone 

 made great use of millet, 2 and it has also been found in 

 the remains of the lake-dwellings of Varese in Italy. 3 

 As we do not elsewhere find specimens of these early 

 times, it is impossible to know what was the panicum or 

 the sorghum mentioned by Latin authors which was 

 used as food by the inhabitants of Gaul, Panonia, and 

 other countries. Unger 4 counts P. miliaceum among the 

 species of ancient Egypt, but it does not appear that he 

 had positive proof of thivS, for he has mentioned no monu- 

 ment, drawing, or seed found in the tombs. Nor is there 

 any material proof of ancient cultivation in Mesopotamia 

 India, and China. For the last-named country it is a 

 question whether the shu, one of the five cereals sown by 

 the emperors in the great yearly ceremony, is Panicum 

 miliaceum, an allied species, or sorghum ; but it appears 

 that the sense of the word shu has changed, and that 

 formerly it was perhaps sorghum which was sown. 5 



1 The passages from Theophrastus, Cato, and others, are translated in 

 Lenz, Botanik der Alien, p. 232. 



2 Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten, p. 17. 



3 Regazzoni, Riv. Arch. Prov. di Como, 1880, fasc. 7. 



4 Unger, Pflanzen des Alten JEgyptens, p. 34. 



5 Bretschneider, Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works, pp. 

 7,8,45. 



