CHAPTER XVIII 
ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED GRAINS AND GRASSES! 
Cultivated plants, like domesticated animals, originated in the wild- The 
grasses - Wheat - Barley - Indian corn. Oats- Rye- Rice Sorghum - Sugar 
cane - Millet. Buckwheat - Timothy. Blue grass- Redtop- Orchard grass - 
The Festucas - Miscellaneous grasses 
Cultivated plants, like domesticated animals, originated in 
the wild. The succeeding chapter will show briefly how it was 
that the choicest plants, like the most useful animals, came to be 
appropriated by man, — taken out of their wild surroundings and 
more or less completely domesticated. The present chapter will 
deal with a few of the more important of the cultivated plants, 
some of which are not yet fully domesticated. 
By far the most useful of all plants is the so-called grass 
family, used for grain, forage, and pasture. Botanically the 
grasses are distinguished by narrow, parallel-veined leaves on a 
jointed hollow stem bearing seeds on a more or less compact 
spike at the top, like timothy and wheat, or, occasionally, at one 
of the joints midway up the stem, as in Indian corn. These 
plants are valuable, first, for their seeds, which are numerous and 
large and distinguished for their starch content, and sometimes, 
as in corn, for their oil. They are also valuable for forage be- 
cause the immature stem and leaf when cured are eaten greedily 
by nearly all domesticated animals.? Besides this, many of the 
smaller species, like blue grass and the so-called buffalo grasses 
1 See Darwin’s “ Animals and Plants under Domestication,” Vol. I, chaps. ix, 
x, and “ Origin of Cultivated Plants,” by Alphonse de Candolle, for additional 
information about cultivated species. The latter volume has been freely drawn 
upon for material in the present chapter. 
2 Contrary to common belief, the pig likes hay, but he vastly prefers clover 
or alfalfa to timothy or any of the grasses. See under Leguminous Plants. 
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