26 



selected and domesticated by our remote ancestors. Agriculture 

 is so ancient that for certain species, notably maize in America, 

 the wild-growing form from which it was derived is not known 

 with certainty. 



We seldom give a thought as to whence our basic food plants 

 came, when, where and by whom they were first cultivated, and 

 how, when and by whom they were disseminated. If we think 

 of corn, we are apt to think of Iowa, or some other producing 

 region; if wheat, then Dakota or Minnesota; if oranges, grape- 

 fruit, or lemons, then California or Florida whence our market 

 supplies chiefly come; if potatoes, then Maine or Idaho, or 

 some other region producing outstandingly good varieties; if 

 apples, then Maine, or New York or Michigan or Oregon, or 

 almost any other producing region in the United States. We are 

 influenced by our current knowledge of the chief producing 

 areas as far as our own markets are concerned. But where did 

 these plants originate? 



If we examine the origins of cultivated plants we soon learn 

 that the great majority of the several hundred cultivated spe- 

 cies came originally from certain very restricted parts of the 

 world. Much of Europe, a large part of Asia, most of Africa, all 

 of North America north of Mexico, and all of Australia con- 

 tributed little or nothing of importance, although all of these 

 regions support a varied native vegetation. Most of the culti- 

 vated species are natives of definitely limited areas, some in 

 America, some in the Old World, and the most important food 

 plants originally occurred as native species in or near those 

 regions that developed the earlier civilizations, whether in 

 Eurasia or in America. As outstanding centers of both the origins 

 of cultivated plants, of domesticated animals, and of early high 

 civilizations we may mention the high lands of Mexico and of 

 Bolivia and Peru in America, certain parts of the Mediterranean 

 basin in Europe, Asia Minor, central Asia, and certain parts of 

 India and China in Asia. It is from these restricted areas that 

 most of our important food plants and domesticated animals 

 came, and it is these same relatively limited regions that pro- 

 duced the several ancient civilizations. In Mexico the basic 

 foods were maize or Indian corn, the sweet potato, beans, 

 squashes, pumpkins, and others of lesser importance, in Bolivia 

 and Peru the potato, lima beans, some forms of common beans, 



