Chap. IX. ON CULTIVATED PLANTS. 311 



grass, has been derived from an oceanic or uninhabited island 

 If nearly all our useful plants, natives of Europe, Asia, and 

 South America, had originally existed in their present con- 

 dition, the complete absence of similarly useful plants in the 

 great countries just named would indeed be a surprising fact 

 But if these plants have been so greatly modified and improved 

 by culture as no longer closely to resemble any natural species, 

 we can understand why the above-named countries have given 

 us no useful plants, for they were either inhabited by men who 

 did not cultivate the ground at all, as in Australia and the 

 Cape of Good Hope, or who cultivated it very imperfectly, as 

 in some parts of America. These countries do yield plants 

 which are useful to savage man; and Dr. Hooker 15 enume- 

 rates no less than 107 such species in Australia alone; but 

 these plants have not been improved, and consequently cannot 

 compete with those which have been cultivated and improved 

 during thousands of years in the civilised world. 



The case of New Zealand, to which fine island we as yet owe 

 no widely cultivated plant, may seem opposed to this view ; for, 

 when first discovered, the natives cultivated several plants ; but 

 all inquirers believe, in accordance with the traditions of the 

 natives, that the early Polynesian colonists brought with them 

 seeds and roots, as well as the dog, which had all been wisely 

 preserved during their long voyage. The Polynesians are so 

 frequently lost on the ocean, that this degree of prudence would 

 occur to any wandering party : hence the early colonists of New 

 Zealand, like the later European colonists, would not have had 

 any strong inducement to cultivate the aboriginal plants. Ac- 

 cording to De Candolle we owe thirty-three useful plants to 

 Mexico, Peru, and Chile; nor is this surprising when we re- 

 member the civilised state of the inhabitants, as shown by the 

 fact of their having practised artificial irrigation and made 

 tunnels through hard rocks without the use of iron or gun- 

 powder, and who, as we shall see in a future chapter, fully recog- 

 nised, as far as animals were concerned, and therefore probably 

 in the case of plants, the important principle of selection. We 

 owe some plants to Brazil; and the early voyagers, namely 

 Vespucius and Cabral, describe the country as thickly peopled 

 15 ' Flora of Australia,' Introduction, p. ex. 



