114 THE SEED-GROWER. 



simply been improving these antique forms, which were 

 bred for cultivation ages back in a lost civilization. 



The more we contemplate the work of the ancient 

 plant-breeders, the more we are lost in wonder. It is 

 plain that it was not owing to results of chance, but we 

 can reasonably conclude that it was due to certain sys- 

 tematic methods, applied with a high order of intelli- 

 gence, generally along the line of selection. 



The living evidences of their skill are these specimens 

 which have come down to us, and of which Pliny gives 

 testimony that they existed under cultivation at the 

 beginning of the Christian era, not materially different 

 in their forms from what they are to-day. 



How old are these anciently bred plants ? It would 

 probably be nearer right to date their origin at least to 

 the time of the Sphinx, supposed to be about seven 

 thousand years old or even much further back to that 

 mystic golden age, when men thought out the first prin- 

 ciples of arithmetic, astronomy, and the sciences gen- 

 erally, and studied the art of food, and perhaps dis- 

 covered the secret since lost, of being able to live to 

 be one thousand years old. That, even in the time 

 of Josephus the historian, there were glimmerings of, 

 as when in writing the views of his period, why men 

 were formerly able to live to such great age, he said: 

 " Because their food was then fitter for the prolongation 

 of life." 



Before leaving this pardonable reference to prehistoric 

 plant-breeding, let us direct attention to the simple hard- 

 heading cabbage, and its sub-varieties, brussels sprouts, 

 broccoli, cauliflower, kohl rabi and ruta baga, and in- 

 quire whether any plant-breeder of our time is able to 

 reproduce these in forms as we know them, from their 

 progenitor, the wild cabbage, which is to be seen to-day 



