448 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



cultivated on a large scale by agriculturists, or in 

 kitchen gardens and orchards. I might have added a 

 few rarely cultivated or but little known, or of which 

 the cultivation has been abandoned ; but the statistical 

 results would be essentially the same. 



Out of the 247 species which I have studied, the old 

 world has furnished 199, America 45, and three are still 

 uncertain. 



No species was common to the tropical and austral 

 regions of the two hemispheres before cultivation. 

 Allium schcenoprasum, the hop (Humulus lupulus^), 

 the strawberry (Fragaria visca), the currant (Ribes 

 Tuubrum), the chestnut (Castanea vulgaris), and the 

 mushroom (Agaricus campestris'), were common to the 

 northern regions of the old and new worlds. I have 

 reckoned them among the species of the old world, since 

 their principal habitation is there, and there they were 

 first cultivated. 



A great number of species originated at once in 

 Europe and Western Asia, in Europe and Siberia, in the 

 Mediterranean basin and Western Asia, in India and 

 the Asiatic archipelago, in the West Indies and Mexico, 

 in these two regions and Columbia, in Peru and Brazil, 

 or in Peru and Columbia, etc., etc. They may be counted 

 in the table. This is a proof of the impossibility of sub- 

 dividing the continents and of classing the islands in 

 well-defined natural regions. Whatever be the method 

 of division, there will always be species common to two, 

 three, four, or more regions, and others confined to a 

 small portion of a single country. The same facts may 

 be observed in the case of uncultivated species. 



A noteworthy fact is the absence in some countries 

 of indigenous cultivated plants. For instance, we have 

 none from the arctic or antarctic regions, where, it is 

 true, the floras consist of but few species. The United 

 States, in spite of their vast territory, which will soon 

 support hundreds of millions of inhabitants, only yields, 

 as nutritious plants worth cultivating, the Jerusalem 

 artichoke and the gourds. Zizana cequatica, which 

 the natives gathered wild, is a grass too inferior to 



