man, only the passing tenants of a season. In some of them at 

 leastj neither change of cUmate nor treatment under cultivation, 

 during thousands of years, has wrought any important alteration 

 in general character. Like other Grasses and higher groups of 

 vegetation, they have, all, their geographical limits, beyond which 

 even human art cannot force their production ; but, although those 

 limits are wide, and the natural phenomena they embrace are 

 varied, the grain matured under the rainless and burning skies of 

 Egypt, and that of the same species ripened in Northern Europe, 

 differ no more than varieties which may be reared upon the same 

 field. 



The supposed improvement of the Cereal Grasses, from species 

 less productive in the natural state, is perfectly consistent with 

 changes induced by culture on other plants ; but it is an important 

 fact in their history, that the original modifications should have 

 been results of corresponding ideas and successful experiments, 

 among peoples whose careers and circumstances were widely dis- 

 similar, and whose efforts were neither simultaneous nor exercised 

 upon the same objects, though in every instance leading to a 

 similar consummation — namely, the production of vast and con- 

 tinuous supplies of vegetable food from sources individually so 

 insignificant. We may readily understand the early appreciation, 

 for such purpose, of certain fruits, conspicuous as to size and 

 abundantly brought forth, as the date, the cocoa, and the fig, or 

 those of the plantain and banana ; similar reasons operated in di- 

 recting attention to the nutritive character of the more succulent 

 roots, and the seeds of the various kinds of pulse. But, that race 

 after race of mankind should have adopted Grass-seeds as its 

 principal supporting medium, as its main staff of life ; and pursued 

 their cultivation, until it became a science involving the subsistence 

 of hundreds of millions, demanding laws for its protection, and 

 engrossing the paramount consideration of kings and governments, 

 is one of the most marked characteristics of human progress. By 



b 



