480 BOTANICAL TOUR IN THE 
not the causes. We have food-producing plants as well as useful 
domestic animals, and we believe that they were created by God 
for the sustenance and the accommodation of man; and it is be- 
lieved that no cause is assignable for their existence, but the crea- 
tive wisdom of the Almighty and All-wise Creator. God gave 
man, on his creation, the seeds of herbs and the fruit of trees 
for his subsistence; He gave man a place wherein these food- 
bearing plants might be produced, with a charge “to keep and 
dress”? the same. If our Cereal Grasses had had to be reclaimed 
from the wild species of Triticum, Hordeum, Avena, Secale, ete. 
(from the Wild Grasses of our hedges, woods, and fields), and 
our fruit-trees, from the Sloe and Crab-trees of our woods and 
hedges, the human race would have perished long ere these re- 
claimed species could have supplied them with necessary food. 
Let the supporters of this popular opinion experiment on the 
Wild Carrot and Wild Parsnip of our fields and waysides, and 
tell us how many years elapsed ere they had an edible Carrot or 
Parsnip from that source. We know that domesticated plants 
as well as domestic animals may be improved, yet their dis- 
tinctive natural characters remain the same. It may be sub- 
mitted that there is no evidence that domestic animals and cul- 
tivated plants ever existed, or could exist, without the aid of man. 
Cereal plants could not long exist unless the soil were kept clear 
of weeds; they would soon be choked by the myriads of hardier 
plants, which, in their turn, would be superseded by other forms 
of vegetation. Few garden flowers grow wild in a neglected 
garden. How long would the capercailzies and pheasants of 
our lowland woods, and the hares and rabbits of our hills, exist, 
if the vermin (the beasts and birds of prey) were not kept under 
by the establishments of game-keepers and trappers, which are 
everywhere maintained by the ownership of the soil and the pro- 
tectors of the game? It is not to be gainsaid that wild plants 
(plants naturally wild) are transferred to gardens, and do become 
useful and ornamental objects of cultivation. But, on the other 
hand, it is firmly asserted that the vulgar notion that all our fine 
flowering plants were originally wildings, and that all our Cereal, 
Leguminiferous, and esculent plants, of whatever sort they be, 
were, at some remote period, only existent in a wild or natural 
state, is not only unsupported by any reliable evidence, but is 
now incapable of satisfactory proof. 
