Man's Work on the Farm 353 



and became important crops. Rice, cotton and sugar, 

 for instance, were all grown in the south of Europe to 

 some extent, after the Saracens had introduced them 

 there, but what were the little plantations of Spain 

 and Italy compared with those of the West Indies and 

 America ? 



However, though the stream continued to flow 

 westward, and that with such vigour that nearly the 

 whole of the vegetable world of Europe seemed to be 

 on the move, no sooner was the New World discovered 

 than a counter movement set in. The eastern world 

 certainly gave more than it received; but it also 

 received much, and American plants are now so well 

 known throughout Europe and great part of Asia, that 

 they are hardly any longer looked upon as foreigners ; 

 and it is quite difficult to realize what the lands of the 

 Mediterranean, and even our own kitchen-gardens, 

 looked like before the discovery of America, when the 

 blue-green, sword-leaved agave, commonly called the 

 American aloe, the magnolia and prickly pear, were 

 unknown in the south of Europe ; when Italy had no 

 maize, macaroni, or tomatoes, the Irish no potatoes, 

 and the Turk no tobacco. 



When we think of the way in which the prickly pear 

 has spread over all the coasts of the Mediterranean, 

 north and south, and of the broad fields now devoted 

 to the cultivation of maize and potatoes, to say nothing 

 of the garden-ground occupied by Jerusalem artichokes, 

 scarlet-runners, haricot-beans, and ornamental plants, 

 we may form some idea of the alterations produced in 

 the green world of the east by the discovery of the 

 other half of the globe. There is indeed hardly a park, 

 or even a cottage-garden in Europe, where plants from 



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