HISTORY OF THE CROP. 461 



tissue of its upper portions, and possessing a sweet mucila- 

 ginous taste, with but little of the strong and disagreeable 

 bitter that is so marked in the roots of the wild plant. 



Carrots have been too long in cultivation in this country 

 to be able to trace them back to their original departure 

 from this wild type, from which there is no doubt they 

 originally sprung, as in a series of experiments upon our 

 cultivated plants 1 M. Louis Yilmorin succeeded in obtain- 

 ing roots sufficiently developed to be perfectly tender and 

 fit for cooking, from plants only four or five generations 

 from the indigenous stock. There is no doubt the carrot 

 was known for its edible, as well as for its medicinal pro- 

 perties, to the ancients, as it is mentioned by Dioscorides, 

 and a drawing exists in his manuscript in the Vienna 

 Museum. The description given by Dioscorides is quoted 

 by Pliny, but does not appear to have been noticed by the 

 other Roman agricultural writers. In our early herbals 

 those of Dodoens and Gerarde we find it figured and 

 described, with full directions for its cultivation and use. 

 At this period it was certainly known in this country as a 

 garden vegetable, having been probably introduced, with 

 so many of our vegetables, from Germany or the Low 

 Countries, which were then further advanced than our- 

 selves in the art of cultivation, and had no doubt derived 

 it originally from Italy, or other countries more civilized 

 than they were themselves. As a field crop they were but 

 little known until towards the end of the last century, 

 when we find mention made of them by Arthur Young, 

 and also in some few of the surveys made for the Board 

 of Agriculture at the beginning of the present, in which 

 the descriptions and recommendations given would imply 

 they were only newly introduced as a farm crop suitable 

 for light soils. Since then their value has been better 

 known to us; and we now know, by our improved tillage 



1 Transactions of the Horticultural Society, vol. ii. p. 348. 



