286 



VAEIATION OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 



XXXVI 



age, or before the iise of metals was yet known. The 

 antiquity which we are thus called npon to assign to the 

 culture of certain plants need not surprise us, if Mr. Darwin 

 is correct in his opinion, that man in a barbarous state is 

 naturally led to discover the useful properties of all wild 

 plants by the frequently recurring famines to which all savage 

 tribes are exposed; for when in danger of starving he is 

 compelled to try as food every kind of fruit, leaf, and root. 

 By this means the nutritious, stimulating, and medical 

 qualities of the most unpromising species are brought to light. 

 It might have been thought that the seeds of wild grasses 

 were too minute to afford much temptation for men in a rude 

 state of society to cultivate them for food ; but it seems that 

 both Barth and Livingstone"^ observed the natives iil different 

 parts of Africa collecting the seeds of wild grasses, and 

 eating them ; from which practice it would be an easy step to 

 pass to the sowing of some of them near their usual haunts, 

 and eventually to the selection for seed of those varieties which 

 yielded the largest crops. The great number of cultivated 

 grasses or cereals, and the difficulties which botanists en- 

 counter when they endeavour to trace them to their original 

 stocks, or to the wild species from which they have sprung, 



suppose that they have 



becomes 



more intelligible if we 



undergone considerable modifications under culture in pre- 

 historic times. 



It has often been remarked that we do not owe a single 

 useful plant to Australia or the Cape of Good Hope, or to 

 New Zealand, or to America south of the Plata. On this 

 subject Mr. Darwin observes, that we must by no means 

 infer that in these countries no native plants have proved 

 useful to savage man. Dr. Hooker, indeed, enumerates no 

 less than 107 native speciesf which are used even by the 

 Australians. 



has hitherto derived from the regions above alluded to simply 

 demonstrates that wild plants cannot compete with those 

 which have been improved by cultivation for a long series of 

 generations. 



But the small advantage which civilised man 



fit 



P' 



* Cited by Danvin ' On Variation of 

 Animals; &c., 1867, p. 308. 



t Flora of Australia, Introduction, 



p. ex 



