OF ROOT CULTIVATION. 



our garden esculents should be derived from sea-side 

 plants. Thus, probably carrot, but certainly celery, 

 sea-kale, asparagus, and cabbage. This would seem 

 to point to the fact that cultivation requires a com- 

 plete change of the circumstances necessary to main- 

 tain a wild condition; and hence cultivated plants 

 can only be kept up by the labours of a cultivator. 



Now, as regards the sea-side carrot, we are after 

 all inclined to the belief that it is the parent of the 

 cultivated varieties, whilst, on the other hand, we 

 view the Daucus Carota (the wild inland carrot) as 

 a probable descendant from the cultivated or garden 

 stock ; and if this be so, the Daucus maritima is the 

 original species from which both the wild and culti- 

 vated races have descended. Bentham, indeed, car- 

 ries this view a little further, the following remarks 

 tending to throw doubts upon the carrot in any 

 form as being a true native. Under the heading of 

 Daucus Carota he says : — 



Probably an original native of tlie sea-coasts of modern Europe, 

 but of very ancient cultivation, and sows itself most readily, soon 

 degenerating to the wild form, with a slender root, and now most 

 abundant in fields, pastures, waste places, &c, throughout Europe and 

 Russian Asia ; common in Britain, especially near the sea. Flowers 

 the whole summer and autumn. A decidedly maritime variety, with 

 the leaves somewhat fleshy, with shorter segments, more or less 

 thickened peduncles, more spreading umbels, and more flattened 

 prickles to the fruits, is often considered as a distinct species. 



Seeing then that crop plants are derivatives from a 

 wild stock, we can readily understand how the vary- 

 ing circumstances attendant upon the development of 

 the former should tend to the production of varieties, 

 and this merely as the result of the treatment of the 



