ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 7 



Besides, the element of hazard in hunting and 

 fishing attracts primitive, and sometimes civilized, 

 man, more than the rude and regular labor of 

 cultivation." 



Darwin gives us in the book quoted above an 

 excellent idea of the beginnings of agriculture. 1 

 "MM. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps and De Candolle 

 have remarked," he says, " that our cultivated 

 plants, more especially the cereals, must origi- 

 nally have existed in nearly their present state ; 

 for otherwise they would not have been noticed 

 and valued as objects of food. But these authors 

 apparently have not considered the many accounts 

 given by travellers of the wretched food collected 

 by savages. I have read an account of the savages 

 of Australia cooking, during a dearth, many vege- 

 tables in various ways, in the .hopes of rendering 

 them innocuous and more nutritious. Dr. Hooker 

 found the half-starved inhabitants of a village in 

 Sikhim suffering greatly from having eaten arum- 

 roots, which they had pounded and left for several 

 days to ferment, so as partially to destroy their 

 poisonous nature ; and he adds that they cooked 

 and ate many other deleterious plants. Sir Andrew 

 Smith informs me that in South Africa a large 



1 Vol. I. p. 324, 



