iv BEGINNINGS OF AGKICULTUEE 39 



still be found and cultivated, but it is not very 

 likely. We may perhaps be inclined to laugh at 

 the boy who thought that, during all the genera- 

 tions that people have had gardens in England, 

 nobody but himself had thought of going out into 

 the fields and woods to get roots, but many people 

 forget that the same thing is true generally of the 

 world at large. If we go to a new country and 

 begin to make a garden, we may be doubtful as to 

 what plants we ought to grow, but we shall be 

 wiser to choose our plants out of the number of 

 those already cultivated, rather than attempt to 

 cultivate fresh ones. 



More than this, most of the plants cultivated 

 on the large scale, that is, most plants really useful 

 to man, have been cultivated for a very long time, 

 so long that they are sometimes older than history. 

 A Swiss botanist, De Candolle, who studied the 

 subject very carefully, says that out of the 247 

 cultivated plants which are most useful to man, 

 180 have been cultivated for more than two 

 thousand years, and a good many of these for more 

 than four thousand years. The most important 

 food-plants go back into the very distant past ; it 

 was they which made it possible for man to multiply 

 and become civilised. 



The last two thousand years and remember 

 that these are the years which we are apt to think 



