29 



Eurasia, particularly Asia, as contrasted to America, yielded 

 a much larger number of cultivated food plants than did Amer- 

 ica, .is well as most of our domesticated animals such as cattle, 

 horses, camels, water buffalo, yak, sheep, goats, swine, hens, 

 pigeons, and most kinds of ducks. Other than maize, all of Un- 

 cultivated cereals originated in the ( )|<1 World, including wheat, 

 barley, rye, oats, millet, Italian millet, pearl millet, sorghum, 

 rice, teff, ragi and coix. Other cultivated species include buck- 

 wheat, turnip, cabbage, rutabaga, rape, chard, mustard, Brus- 

 sels sprouts, radish, beet, parsnip, carrot, onion, garlic, leek, 

 shallot, spinach, egg-plant, lettuce, endive, chicory, salsify, 

 celery, asparagus, globe artichoke, pea, soy-bean, cow-pea, 

 chick-pea, pigeon-pea, lentil, broad-bean, hyacinth bean, as- 

 paragus bean, taro, yam, sugar cane, sesame, and various 

 others. Among the fruits may be listed the apple, pear, plum, 

 cherry, European grape, apricot, peach, prune, olive, fig, almond, 

 jujube, melon, water melon, cucumber and in the more tropical 

 regions the banana, coconut, orange, lemon, lime, pomelo, date, 

 mango, mangosteen, bread fruit, jak-fruit, rambutan, litchi, 

 longan, and others. Practically all of the cultivated hay and 

 fodder plants so essential to the dairy industry, including all 

 of the cultivated grasses except maize, as well as the clovers, 

 alfalfa, and other commonly planted hay crop plants are of 

 Eurasian origin. It is well again to emphasize the fact that not 

 one of these were known in America until after the arrival of 

 the Europeans, and with us they represent introductions since 

 the beginning of the sixteenth century. 



If we contrast the American and Eurasian lists it will be 

 noted that most of the cereals, most of the temperate zone 

 cultivated fruits, and most of the vegetables are of Eurasian 

 origin, yet in all three categories America made notable con- 

 tributions. The two lists of plants in themselves comprehensive 

 enough, and sufficiently diversified to serve independently as the 

 basis of an agriculture in America, and in various parts of Eur- 

 asia, on which, it was possible to build real civilizations, yet civ- 

 ilizations, in the two hemispheres, that were utterly independent 

 of each other. The available data on the origin and dissemi- 

 nation of cultivated plants may be interpreted as supporting 

 entirely and .without exception the idea that as agriculture orig- 

 inated in America utterly independent of Old World contacts 

 on the basis of strictly native American species, so the pre- 



