6 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



Theophrastus affirms, that oats sprang 

 from zea, a kind of wheat; and in writing 

 on the faults incidental to corn, Pliny re- 

 marks*, that the first and principal defect 

 observed in bread-corn, and wheat especially, 

 is when it degenerates and turns into oats ; 

 and not that only, but barley also degene- 

 rates into the same kind of grain. This de- 

 fect or imperfection in corn, says this natural- 

 ist, is occasioned chiefly by a moist soil, or too 

 wet a season ; he gives likewise as a second 

 cause, its proceeding from the feebleness and 

 weakness of the seed, when it lies too long 

 soaking in the ground, which causes the root 

 to change its nature. 



Galen tells us in the last chapter of his 

 first book of the Faculties of Nourishment, 

 that both himself and his aged father, who 

 took great delight in husbandry, sowed wheat 

 and barley that was well cleansed from other 

 seed, for the express purpose of proving 

 whether they would change their natures 

 into darnel and haver-grass. He states 

 that they found much darnel arose among 

 the choice wheat, and but little among the 

 barley, and that much haver-grass rose 

 among the barley ; from which he was per- 



* Book xviii. c. 17. 



