4 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



reason of the distance, and those of the intertropical 

 zone were excluded by great drought or by the absence of 

 a high temperature. At the same time, the indigenous 

 species are very poor. It is not merely the want of 

 intelligence or of security which has prevented the in- 

 habitants from cultivating them. The nature of the 

 indigenous flora has so much to do with it, that the 

 Europeans, established in these countries for a hundred 

 years, have only cultivated a single species, the Tetra- 

 gonia, an insignificant green vegetable. I am aware 

 that Sir Joseph Hooker^ has enumerated more than a 

 hundred Australian species which may be used in some 

 way ; but as a matter of fact they were not cultivated 

 by the natives, and, in spite of the improved methods of 

 the English colonists, no one does cultivate them. This 

 clearly demonstrates the principle of which I spoke just 

 ' now, that the choice of species is more important than 

 the selection of varieties, and that there must be valuable 

 iqualities in a wild plant in order to lead to its cultivation. 

 In spite of the obscurity of the beginnings of culti- 

 vation in each region, it is certain that they occurred at 

 very different periods. One of the most ancient examples 

 of cultivated plants is in a drawing representing figs, 

 found in Egypt in the pyramid of Gizeh. The epoch of 

 the construction of this monument is uncertain. Authors 

 have assigned a date varying between fifteen hundred and 

 four thousand two hundred years before the Christian era. 

 Supposing it to be two thousand years, its actual age 

 would be four thousand years. Now, the construction 

 of the pyramids could only have been the work of a 

 numerous, organized- people, possessing a certain degree of 

 civilization, and consequently an established agriculture, 

 dating from some centuries back at least. In China, two 

 thousand seven hundred years before Christ, the Emperor 

 Chenming instituted the ceremony at which every year 

 five species of useful plants are sown — rice, sweet potato, 

 wheat, and two kinds of mUlet.^ These plants must 



Hooker, Flora Tasmanise, i. p. ox. 

 * Bretschneider, On the Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Worts, 



