xii IMPROVING CULTIVATED PLANTS 143 



beans. In the remains of the Stone Age, a few 

 traces of a small round garden pea have been 

 found, but it was not until the Bronze Age that 

 this pea seems to have become abundant. In the 

 Bronze Age garden beans appear for the first time, 

 but these were only about half the size of our 

 beans. Not until the time of the Eomans does a 

 larger and better bean appear. 



When we get down to the time of the Romans, 

 it is easier to show that at least the idea of 

 improving cultivated plants was present to the 

 minds of the people who cultivated the ground. 

 Thus Virgil says : 



I've seen the largest seeds, tho' viewed with care, 

 Degenerate, unless th' industrious hand 

 Did yearly cull the largest. 



This shows that he had noticed that the grains 

 of corn were not all of the same size, and that if 

 even the level already attained was to be kept up, 

 it must be by carefully picking out the best grains 

 to serve as seed-corn. In much the same way, 

 Celsus, who wrote nearly a hundred years after 

 Virgil, but still more than eighteen hundred years 

 ago, says : " Where the corn and crop is but 

 small, we must pick out the best ears of corn, and 

 of them lay up our seed separately by itself." 



It was not only among the Romans, however, 

 that the farmers saved the best seed for sowing. 



