﻿imparts the results of his studies in that easy style, so charac- 

 teristic of French writers, which makes one almost doubt his 

 thoroughness. Nevertheless, his authorities, though they range 

 from Holy Scripture, Homer, Herodotus, Theophrastus, and Pliny 

 to the most recent French and even English writers, are admirably 

 chosen. Though, perhaps, like DeCandolle, he lays rather too 

 much stress upon philological evidence, he has also some most 

 interesting statistics, and his general reflections are free from the 

 wildness which sometimes characterises books of this class. 



Beginning with the pre-historic time, when there was no culti- 

 vation, and wild plants alone were gathered, he deals in successive 

 books, arranged somewhat artificially, with food-plants, economic 

 plants, — i, e., those used in preparing drinks, oil and sugar, — forage- 

 plants, officinal plants, industrial plants, — chiefly textile and dyeing 

 substances, — woody and ornamental plants. He then treats of the 

 future of agriculture, the processes of cultivation, and the produc- 

 tion and preservation of improved varieties. The following passage 

 is, perhaps, a fair example of his style : — 



" According to the testimony of Champier and of Olivier de 

 Serres, wheat, in the 16th century, was used only at the tables 

 of the rich. The mass of the people lived on barley or rye. It 

 was the same in other countries. A century later, white bread, 

 hitherto the privilege of wealth, had all but entirely replaced black 

 bread. The extension of our cultivation of wheat shows both the 

 improvement of agricultural methods and the progress of general 

 well-being. The future destiny of this valuable grain is to become 

 the centre of our whole industrial system. France, which in 1789 

 grew wheat on four million hectares and only obtained from them 

 83 million hectolitres, now has seven million hectares and harvests 

 on an average 110 million hectolitres, amounting in value to 2000 

 million francs. In the other states of Europe the production of 

 wheat reaches about 100 million hectolitres in Kussia, 50 in 

 Austria-Hungary, the same amount in Italy, 40 in Spain, 29 in 

 Great Britain, 25 in Germany, &c. Much progress has yet, how- 

 ever, to be made, and France herself, though she heads this 

 list, would have to produce 140 million hectolitres in order to feed 

 all her population with wheat, one-sixth of them living at present 

 upon inferior cereals. Having received this treasure, the cause of 

 her wealth, from Asia, Europe has handed it on to the other parts 

 of the world that she has conquered for civilization. America 

 owes to a poor negro, a slave of Fernando Cortez, the first wheat- 

 plants that bore fruit on her soil. This Triptolemus of the New 

 World, having found three grains of wheat in the rice sent as pro- 

 vender for the expedition, sowed them, and gave to Mexico her first 

 harvest. Three and a-half centuries later, the United States, the 

 most important wheat-producing centre in the world, yields (1882) 

 182 million hectolitres. We may also mention Canada, which 

 already reaches 13, and the Argentina with 10. India, only 

 recently engaged in the same production, already yields more than 

 100 million hectolitres, and Australia has made a beginning with 

 8. The total production of wheat in the civilized world was esti- 



