336 CEREAL PLANTS. Chap. IX, 



be neglected unless the grains of corn were at the same time 

 superior in quality or size. The selection of seed-corn was 

 strongly recommended **^ in ancient times by Columella and 

 Celsus ; and as Virgil says, — 



" I've seen the largest seeds, the' view'd with care. 

 Degenerate, unless th' industrious hand 

 Did yearly cull the largest." 



T>ut whether in ancient times selection was methodically 

 pui-sued we may well doubt, when we hear how laborious the 

 work has been found by Le Couteur and Hallett. Although 

 the principle of selection is so important, yet the little which 

 man has effected, by incessant efforts " during thousands of 

 years, in rendering the plants more productive or the grains 

 more nutritious than they were in the time of the old Egypt- 

 ians, would seem to speak strongly against its efficacy. But 

 we must not forget that at each successive period the state of 

 agriculture and the quantity of manure supplied to the land 

 will have determined the maximum degree of productiveness ; 

 for it would be impossible to cultivate a highly productive 

 variety, unless the land contained a sufficient supply of the 

 necessary chemical elements. 



We now know that man was sufficiently civilized to ciilti- 

 vate the ground at an immensely remote period; so that 

 wheat might have been improved long ago up to that standard 

 of excellence which was possible under the then existing state 

 of agriculture. One small class of facts supports this view of 

 the slow and gradual improvement of our cereals. In the 

 most ancient lake-habitations of Switzerland, when men 

 employed only flint-tools, the most extensively cultivated 

 wheat was a peculiar kinJ, with remarkably smsdl ears and 

 o-rains.** " Whilst the trains of the modern forms are in 

 section from seven to eight millimetres in length, the larger 

 srrains from the lake habitations are six, seldom seven, and 

 the smaller ones only four. The ear is thus much narrower, 



*^ Qaoted by Le Couteur, p. 16. bauten, ' 18(5G. The following passa^te 



*' A. De CandoUe, ' Geograph. Bot.,' is quoted from Dr. Christ, in ' Die 



p. 93'2 Fauna der Pfahlbauten, von Dr. Riiti- 



♦» 0. Heer, ' Die Pflanzen der Pfahl- meyer,' 186 1 , s. 225. 



