196 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



meanwhile, in Egypt and the south, still better varieties 

 were being gradually developed by careful selection ; 

 and we find both kinds side by side in some few 

 instances ; thus showing that both were grown to- 

 gether at the same time by races in different stages of 

 civilisation. With the introduction of these better kinds 

 by the Greek and Roman colonists into Gaul and 

 Britain, the old lake-wheat became quite extinct. In- 

 deed, in every case the cultivated seeds and fruits which 

 grew in neolithic garden plots were much smaller than 

 those of our own time : whereas the wild seeds and 

 wild fruits found under the same circumstances are just 

 as large as their congeners of the present day. In other 

 words, while circumstances have not since compelled any 

 increase of size in the wild plants, constant selection has 

 produced a great increase in the cultivated varieties. It 

 must not, however, be inferred that no changes whatever 

 have since come over the wild kinds in any respect : as 

 in all other cases, there has been change and modifica- 

 tion in minor matters proportionate to the lapse of time 

 which has since intervened. But a lapse which makes 

 relatively little difference to the stable wild weeds makes 

 relatively great differences in the very plastic and care- 

 fully selected cultivated plants. 



