10 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



u Accustomed as we are to our excellent vegeta- 

 bles and luscious fruits, we can hardly persuade 

 ourselves that the stringy roots of the wild carrot 

 and parsnip, or the little shoots of the wild aspar- 

 agus, or crabs, sloes, and so forth, should ever have 

 been valued ; yet from what we know of the hab- 

 its of Australian and South African savages, we 

 need feel no doubt on this head. The inhabitants 

 of Switzerland, during the stone period, largely 

 collected wild crabs, sloes, bullaces, hips of roses, 

 elderberries, beech-mast, and other wild berries and 

 fruits. Jemmy Button, a Fuegian on board the 

 Beagle, remarked to me that the poor and acid 

 black currants of Terra del Fuego were too sweet 

 for his taste. 



" The savage inhabitants of each land, having 

 found out by many and hard trials what plants 

 were useful, or could be rendered useful by various 

 cooking processes, would after a time take the first 

 step in cultivation by planting them near their 

 usual abodes. Livingstone states that the savage 

 Batokas sometimes left wild fruit trees standing in 

 their gardens and occasionally even planted them, 

 ' a practice seen nowhere else among the natives.' 

 But Du Chaillu saw a palm and some other wild 

 fruit trees which had been planted ; and these trees 



