72 Elementary Species 



tion, is supported in a large measure by the his- 

 toric fact that the most of them are far older 

 than the method of conscious selection of plants 

 itself. This method is due to Louis Vilmorin 

 and dates from the middle of the last century. 

 But in the sixteenth century most of our present 

 varieties of beets were already in cultivation. 

 Caspar Bauhin gives a list of the beets of his 

 time and it is not difficult to recognize in it a 

 large series of subspecies and varieties, and 

 even of special forms, which are still cul- 

 tivated. A more complete list was published 

 towards the close of the same century by Olivier 

 de Serres in his world-renowned ** Theatre 

 d'Agriculture " (Paris, 1600). 



The red forage-beets which are now cultivated 

 on so large a scale, had been introduced from 

 Italy into France only a short time before. 



From this historic evidence, the period during 

 which the beets were cultivated from the time 

 of the Romans or perhaps much later, up to the 

 time of Bauhin and De Serres, would seem far 

 too short for the production by the unguided se- 

 lection of man of all the now existing types. On 

 the other hand, the parallelism between the 

 characters of some wild and some cultivated 

 varieties goes to make it very probable that 

 other varieties have been found in the same 

 way, some in this country and others in that, 



