52 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



this is not allowed witnout some opposition. Theophrastus 

 speaks of a certain peculiar wheat, with grains of the size 

 of an olive kernel, which came from India ; and many 

 believe that this cannot have been anything else but 

 maize. They try to strengthen their position by the fact, 

 that not one of the many carefully searching travellers in 

 America has ever yet found maize growing otherwise 

 than cultivated or evidently run wild. Its names in 

 European languages certainly refer it to the East. Ger- 

 many and Italy call it "Turkish wheat," and the Greeks 

 also point with their "Arabic wheat," to an Oriental 

 home. 



It is almost cruel not to allow this continent the merit 

 of being, at least, the original home of the potato, as is 

 generally believed. It was said to grow wild in Peru, 

 Chili, and Mexico, but learned botanists and careful obser- 

 vers have since ascertained that the tuber there found is 

 not the common parent, but only a different species of 

 the numerous genus to which the potato belongs. An- 

 other curious evidence is, that in Mexico itself, only quite 

 recently, attempts have been made along the coast to 

 raise potatoes, mainly for the purpose of giving to Eu- 

 ropeans in the so-called home of that most useful plant, 

 the favorite vegetable of their own mother country. But 

 alas! they have stoutly refused to grow any longer in the 

 presumed land of their fathers, and every effort has, so 

 far, signally failed. 



As every great good has its necessary evil, and as every 

 army of brave soldiers is almost inevitably followed by 

 crowds of stragglers and robbers, so man also has been 



