n 



54 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



He considered that these varieties came from Italy, and 

 Targioni ^ tells us that the name rtiarrone or marone was 

 employed in that country in the Middle Ages (1170). 



Wheat and Kindred Species. — The innumerable varie- 

 ties of wheat, properly so called, of which the ripened 

 grain detaches itself naturally from the husk, have been 

 classed into four groups by Vilmorin,^ which form dis- 

 tinct species, or modifications of the common wheat 

 according to different authors. I am obliged to distin- 

 guish them in order to study their history, but this, as 

 will be seen, supports the opinion of a single species.^ 



1. Common Wheat — Triticum vidgare, Yillars ; Triti- 

 cum hyhernum and T. cestivuon, Linnaeus. 



According to the experiments of the Abbe Rozicr, and 

 later of Tessier, the distinction between autumn and 

 spring wheats has no importance. " All wheats," says the 

 latter,^ " are either spring or autumn sown, according to 

 the country. They all pass with time from the one state 

 to the other, as I have ascertained. They only need to 

 be gradually accustomed to the change, by sowing the 

 autumn wheat a little later, spring wheat a little earlier, 

 year by year." The fact is that among the immense 

 number of varieties there are some which feel the cold of 

 the winter more than others, and it has become the cus- 

 tom to sow them in the spring.^ We need take no note 

 of this distinction in studying the question of origin, 

 especially as the greater number of the varieties thus 

 obtained date from a remote period. 



The cultivation of wheat is prehistoric in the old 

 world. Very ancient Egyptian monuments, older than 

 the invasion of the shepherds, and the Hebrew Scriptures 

 show this cultivation already established, and when the 



* Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 180. 



* Vilmorin, Essai d'un Catalogue Methodique et Synonymique des Fro- 

 ments, Paris, 1850. 



' The best drawings of the different kinds of wheat may be found in 

 Metzger's Europoeische Cerealien, in folio, Heidelberg, 1824'j and in Host, 

 GramincB, in folio, vol. iii. 



* Tessier, Bid. d'Agnc, vi. p. 198. 



* Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Consid. sur les Cereales, 1 Tol. in 8vo, 

 p. 219. 



