190 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



cultivation of this plant, and the name, Lacluca, is used 

 by Pliny. It would have been contrary to the usual 

 practice of mankind, if the inhabitants of this coun- 

 try had cultivated a plant for themselves out of a wild 

 one, when the very plant so cultivated had been 

 previously well known to the people who introduced 

 civilization, and its attendant arts, among them. 

 The improvement of plants by culture is not the 

 work of man in his rude and savage state, even 

 where the climate is more genial than that of Britain, 

 and the plant more promising than the wild lettuce. 

 The navigators of the South Sea obtained among 

 its islands many specimens of their productiveness ; 

 but though some of these plants were beautiful, they 

 were wild, and none could be found that had been 

 improved by culture. The visitors, however, be- 

 stowed on the natives many plants of this latter de- 

 scription. Upon the same principle, it is much more 

 natural to conclude that the Romans introduced into 

 the less civilized places which they overran the ve- 

 getables previously cultivated in Rome, than that 

 these were the result of native skill in the conquered 

 countries. 



CELERY is a native of Britian, and in its wild state 

 is known by the name of smallage. It grows on the 

 sides of ditches and in the neighbourhood of the sea. 

 In all its external characters it bears a marked re- 

 semblance to the garden or esculent celery, which is 

 supposed to have been produced from it by the 

 ameliorating effects of cultivation, subduing its rank 

 and acrid taste into an :aromatic and pungent flavour. 

 ALISANDER, which was formerly much cultivated in 

 this country, is also a native plant. It is still found 

 wild on the sea-coast at Dunglass, on the borders 

 of Berwickshire. The RAMPION, whose leaves and 

 roots were also used for salad, in like manner grows 

 wild in some parts of England. 



