BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 9 
wild carrots? Avena fatua is supposed to be the parent form of 
the cultivated oat, but why not more reasonable to suppose it to 
be an escape, modified only from the cultivated oat in order to 
meet the conditions necessitated by its struggle under nature’s 
conditions ! 
The history of the Indians, after the discovery, shows that 
they were greedy for new sources of food supply, and the facts 
connected with their habits of living all show that they exercised 
a care ovec vegetable productions. Thus the melon and the 
peach reccived distribution over wide areas in advance of a Euro- 
pean discovery; the onion was even mentioned by Cortez as 
found in Mexico; the maize, the bean, and the squash, in vari- 
eties, all plants of tropical origin, and which could net maintain 
themselves without care, were staple crops throughout northern 
America, even to Lake Coulonge on the Ottawa river, and be- 
yond the St. Lawrence, where the crops required seeding, protec- 
ote and preservation of seed over the winter months. ‘The sun- 
flower was grown for its seed by the Hurons, as seems also to 
have been the Jerusalem artichoke for its roots. Bartram notes 
seeing in the south a plantation of hickory nuts cultivated by the 
Indians. The Prunus Americana seems to have ane As entig by 
the New England natives, and this seems also to have been the 
case with Prunus Chicasa in the southwest, sthou ch I find no 
distinct mention of the fact. Numerous other illustrations eccur 
in my notes of a ee or domestication of plants through- 
out America, and a care and curious concern about forms and 
colors which must coe david selection to have been exercised ; 
at any rate, when we have so-called wild species of the same 
varieties, the variability of these wild species in the portion 
which finds use is noticea 
ndeed, the careful student must recognize that the American 
Indians were an agricultural peor setts natural conditions 
and tribal strength would admit, and t ey were efficient 
agents not only in the genptaphiadl daniborion of certain plants, 
but also in the producing of varieties. Circumstances, as in 
European nations in times past, made the tribes usually hunters 
and agriculturists, often seviontlegsl solely, and again devoted 
wholly to the chase, and living on wild penduoiohs 
The history of the origin of our American vegetables must 
come from a close study of the history of a people, as well as 
from a study into the causes and effects of variations. These two 
methods in time may admit of certain generalizations, and it 
seems safe to assume that the results of such a study will not be 
