612 Recent Literature. (June, 
footnotes.. The number of cultivated species mentioned amounts 
to 249, but the author adds that by the end of this century there 
will be about 300 species out of 120,000 or 140,000 species of the 
vegetable kingdom; but this is more than in the animal kingdom, 
where out of “some millions” [sic] of species there are only 200 
species of domestic animals, 
The author remarks in the opening chapter that selection—that 
great factor that Darwin has had the merit of so happily intro- 
ducing into science—plays an important role in agriculture once 
established; but at every epoch, and especially in the begin- 
ning, the choice of species has more importance than the selection 
of varieties. As to the earliest beginnings of the culture of usè- 
ful plants in temperate Europeand Asia, the following extracts 
are of interest: : 
“In spite of the obscurity of the commencement of culture in 
each region, it is certain that the earliest date of cultivated plants 
is very different. One of the oldest examples of cultivated _ 
is, in Egypt, a drawing representing the fig, in the mid 
Gizeh. The epoch of the construction of this monument Is at 
certain. Authors have varied between 1500 and 4200 years 
before th isti boi ose it to be about 2000 
efore the Christian era we supp But the com 
ed on byé 
sowed 
ve 
illet. These 
i i i tamia lead W 
constant relations of this last country with Mesopotam i 
a culture almost contemporaneous 
“ : i in India an 
Why should it not have been as gsi Bee and Malaya? 
Indian archipelago? The history of the Drav! obscurity: 
peoples does not go back very far, and present oid not beet 3 
the -borders 
ents 
but there is no reason to believe that agriculture 
among them a long time since, particularly on 
rivers. 
f the Mediterranean, an 
Western A5 
several species which were already cultivated pe that alres 
e shall see, in studying the history of some 4 in the no 
“The ancient Egyptians and the Pheenicians ge Ve Aya 
