10 THE SCIENCE AND PRACTICE 



cimeus growing on the road-side between Cirencester 

 and Cheltenham, they were subjected to experiment 

 at the same time as the parsnip, but with little, if 

 any, favourable result. Upon this plant Professor 

 Lindley observes as follows :— 



That the hard-rooted wild carrot is really the parent of out- 

 cultivated varieties, remarkable as they are for the succulence and 

 tenderness of their root?, has been experimentally proved by 

 M. Vilmorin, who succeeded in obtaining by cultivation perfectly 

 tender, eatable roots, from seeds saved from plants only three or four 

 generations off the wild species. 



Still, a modern French naturalist of great expe- 

 rience, M. Decaisne, tells us that be has tried to 

 ennoble the wild carrot, and has not succeeded ; and 

 from this he draws the conclusion that our cultivated 

 forms were created specially for the use of man. As 

 we should suppose that very few botanists agree to 

 this theory, we shall let the facts we have already 

 brought forward stand in maintenance of its opposite, 

 namely, that cultivated forms are derived from wild 

 species often apparently very different; but at the 

 same time it may be well to state, that in all proba- 

 bility some of the discrepancies of experimenters 

 may have arisen from some confusion in the species 

 operated upon. 



In 1860 we gathered some seed of the Daucus 

 marltima (sea-side carrot) at Bognor, which, on being 

 sown in a prepared plot the following spring, cer- 

 tainly resulted in fairly succulent roots, which on 

 being cooked were pronounced by our party of four 

 to be excellent. While on this subject, it may be 

 mentioned as not a little remarkable, that so many of 



