374) ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



Mysia, above Pergamus ; that they were given to horses, 

 and that men used them for food in years of scarcity. 

 A colony of Gauls had formerly penetrated into Asia 

 Minor. Oats have been found among the remains of 

 the Swiss lake-dwellings of the age of bronze/ and in 

 Germany, near Wittenburg, in several tombs of tho 

 first centuries of the Christian era, or a little earlier.^ 

 Hitherto none hav^e been found in the lake-dwellings 

 of the north of Italy, which confirms the belief that 

 oats were not cultivated in Italy in the time of the Roman 

 republic. 



The vernacular names also prove an ancient existence 

 north and west of the Alps, and on the borders of Europe 

 towards Tartary and the Caucasus. The most widely 

 diffused of these names is indicated by the Latin avena, 

 Ancient Slav ovisu, ovesu, ovsa, Russian ovesii, Lithuanian 

 awiza, Lettonian aiisas, Ostias ahis.^ The English word 

 oats comes, according to A. Pictet, from the Anglo-Saxon 

 ata or ate. The Basque name, olba or o/oa,* argues a 

 very ancient Iberian cultivation. 



The Keltic names are quite diff'erent:^ Irish coirce, 

 cuirce, corca, Armorican kerch. Tartar sidii, Georgian 

 kari, Hungarian zah, Croat zoh, Esthonian kaer, and 

 othere are mentioned by Nemnich^ as applying to the 

 generic name oats, but it is not likely that names so 

 varied do not belong to a cultivated species. It is 

 strange that there should be an independent Berber name 

 zekkoum^ as there is nothing to show that the species 

 was anciently cultivated in Africa. 



All these facts show how erroneous is the opinion 

 which reigned in the last century,^ that oats were 

 brought originally from the island of Juan Fernandez, a 

 belief which came apparently from an assertion of the 

 navigator Anson.^ It is evidently not in the Austral 



* Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlhauten, p. 6, fig. 24. 

 ' Leuz, Bot. der Alien, p. 245. 



' Ad. Pictet, Orig. Indo.-Europ., edit. 2, vol. i. p. 350. 



* Notes communicated by ISL Clos. * Ad. Pictet, \ili supra. 

 " Nemnich, Polyglott. Lexicon, p. 548. 



' Diet. Fr.-Berhere, published by the French Government. 



* Linnaeus, Species, p. 118; Lamarck, Diet. Enc., i. p. 4>31, 

 ^ Phillips, Cult. Veget., ii. p. 4. 



