500 ■ BIBLICAL BOTANY. \July, 



May I ask on what authority, and by what proofs sustained, 

 the assertions in " Specimens of ' Things not generally known' " 

 have been made ? I fancy tlie title, ' Things not likely to be 

 believed/ would answer better for the book from which, I sup- 

 pose, your correspondent has given an extract. If we can once 

 obtain a proof that wheat may be transmuted into rye, and oats 

 into rye, barley, or wheat, the sooner systematic botany is 

 knocked on the head the better. The proofs are palpable of the 

 effects of cultivation on particular species, and of a confusion of 

 species by hybridization ; but I take the liberty of denying the 

 possibility of one species being changed into another, much more 

 of a change of genus, as the result of cultivation or want of cul- 

 tivation. The first chapter of Genesis seems to me to settle the 

 question, when it tells me, " God said. Let the earth bring forth 

 grass, the herl) yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit 

 after his kind, luhose seed is in itself, upon the earth : and it 

 was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding 

 seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was 

 in itself, after his kind : and God saw that it was good." It is 

 easy to make the assertion that "the Artichoke of the garden, 

 in neglect, degenerates into the Cardoon (a kind of Thistle) of 

 the South American wild ;" but can any close observer of nature 

 be found who can furnish proof of the alleged fact ? On the 

 contrary, the fact is that the Cardoon [Cynara Cardunculus) and 

 the Ai'tichoke (C. Scolymus) — both, I believe, natives of the Old 

 "World — are alike cultivated as vegetables, and equally distinct 

 imder cultivation as in their wild state. In proof of the exist- 

 ence of the Artichoke as a wild plant, I refer to the following 

 passage in Lady Calcott's ' Scripture Herbal :' — " Among the 

 thistles of Palestine is the Cynara, or Artichoke, which grows 

 wild on Mount Tabor. It was brought to England in the time 

 of Henry VIIL, probably by his gardener, who was a French 

 priest of the name of Wolf." 



I do not suppose that your correspondent indorses the state- 

 ment from ' Things not generally known/ but merely gives it as 

 a " specimen" of what some of our pretentious little books, that 

 profess to know something about everything, set forth for the 

 instruction of the ignorant. W. M. Hind, 



Baystoater, June 10, 1858. 



