94 OUR FARM CEOPS. 



the Athenians as the general food of their gladiators, who, 

 from this circumstance, were frequently termed ll horde- 

 arii." 1 Strabo, more exact and explicit than most of the 

 ancient writers, states that cereals grow spontaneously on 

 the banks of the Indus ; but this region is so little known 

 to botanical research, that even now we have no good 

 evidence as to whether his statement is correct or not. 

 Colonel Chesney, in his expedition to the Euphrates, found 

 specimens of a barley growing apparently wild in Meso- 

 potamia, with narrow ears, little more than 1 inch long 

 exclusive of the awns, or 4J inches altogether; and others, 

 from the ruins of Persepolis, with ears " scarcely so large 

 as starved rye." Barley has been found growing naturally 

 in Tartary and in Sicily two countries very distant and 

 very distinct from each other. 



The original country of our cereals appears to be en- 

 veloped in doubt; our evidence in respect to it is very 

 scanty and defective, and that which we have appears 

 to be of a very conflicting nature. Meyen, 2 of Berlin, 

 and Alphonse Decandolle 3 have both discussed this point 

 at some length. The latter tells us that many indica- 

 tions, botanical and historical, support the opinion that 

 Persia and Tartary were the native countries of our 

 cereals. We must consider with them, then, that if, after 

 a century or two of diligent and competent research, no 

 indications are obtained of our cereals growing spontane- 

 ously in any of the regions of the earth visited by man, 

 either that the native country has disappeared during 

 the great physical changes to which the surface of that 

 portion of the globe was subjected in earlier ages, or that 

 they were indigenous to those districts where bread- corns 

 have been cultivated since the remotest periods. Culti- 



1 Pliny's Nat. Hist., lib. xviii, cap. vii. 



2 Grundriss der Pflanzengeographie, von F. J. F. Meyen, Berlin, 1836. 



3 Distribution G6ographique des Plantes alimentaires. 



