THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, J aspfaey 3, 1860. 
216 
Barley. In Scotland we find Oats cultivated to its northern ex¬ 
tremity, lat. 58° 40'. In Sweden they are met with as a crop as 
far as lat. 63° 30'. In Norway their cultivation is pushed still 
farther northward to lat. 65°; and in Russia their polar limit 
corresponds with that of Rye—about 62° 32' N. lat. If we turn 
southward, we find the climate becoming gradually less and less 
suited for them. This is well marked within the limits of our 
own country. South of the parallel of Paris 48° 50' N. lat., we 
rarely see Oats in cultivation. In Spain and Portugal they are 
hardly known at all; yet they are cultivated successfully in 
Bengal, in lat. 25°.* Here, probably, the moisture of the soil 
compensates for the extreme temperature of the climate, as we 
find at home that the Oat, when once fairly growing in a suitable 
soil, will stand a drought better than either of our other cereals. 
On some of the moist alluvial soils in the southern and western 
counties, crops of Oats are grown which would compare favour¬ 
ably, both in quantity and quality, with those produced in the 
more genial climates of the north. Oats are cultivated as a food- 
grain for both man and cattle. In this country (in its northern 
portions chiefly) they enter into human consumption to a far 
greater extent than in any other. In some parts of Germany, 
especially in the south of Westphalia, the inhabitants of the 
“ Sauerlands” live extensively on oaten bread. In other parts of 
the Continent, in countries where Wheat is only cultivated to a 
limited extent, Barley, or more commonly Rye, is preferred to 
Oats as a bread-corn for daily use. In most countries, however, 
of the centre and north of Europe, Oats are cultivated as horse- 
corn ; and, indeed, in the hotter climates of the south and in the 
east, Barley is even preferable for that purpose, as the stimulating 
effects of Oats on the animal system are increased to an injurious 
extent by the action of the warmer climate,”— {Our Farm Crops.) 
[Mr. Wilson was decidedly forgetful when he wrote, “ None 
of the Roman agricultural writers mention ” the Oat. He would 
have been correct if he had excepted Columella. This author says 
—after speaking of the mode of cultivating Barley—“ In like 
manner is the sowing of the Oat, which sown in autumn is partly 
cut for hay, or fodder, whilst yet green, and partly it is protected 
for seed.” {Similis salio arena, qua auctumno sata, partim 
caditur infaneum, vel pabulum, dum adhuo viret, partim semini 
custoditur. —Columella, 1. ii., c. xi.) 
Although only that one of the professed Roman agricultural 
writers mentions the Oat, yet there are others of their authors 
who specially mention it, though not in commendation of its merits. 
Virgil, in a line twice written by him, speaks of “ Oats, causers of 
barrenness” ( steriles arena). Buc., v., 1.37—Georg., i., 1. 154.) 
Again, in the same Georgic, line 226, Virgil says, “ The ex¬ 
pected crop has disappointed them by yielding barren Oats ” 
{Hxpectata seges ranis elusit avenis ), alluding, seemingly, to an 
opiniou entertained by the Romans, and by Theophrastus at a 
still earlier period, that the Oat is diseased Wheat. Rliny says, 
“ The Oat is the chief deformity of all Wheat, and Barley also 
degenerates into it; so much so, indeed, that it has superseded 
Wheat, and the people of Germany sow it and make porridge of 
it alone.” {Primurn omnium frumenti vitium arena est; et hor- 
deum in earn degenerat, sicut ipsa frumenti sit instar : quippe 
cum Germania populi serant earn, neque alid pulte vivant. 
Plin. Nat. Hist., 1. xviii., c. xvii.) 
That one species of the Graminete, to which Natural Order all 
our corn crops belong, will take various forms, according as its 
culture is varied, can be sustained by many evidences. In very 
recent days, M. Fabre and others have improved the JEgilops 
triticoides by culture until it became Wheat; and Mr. Morton, 
author of the “ Cyclopaedia of Agriculture,” obtained both 
Potato and Tartarian Oats, after five or six years’ cultivation, 
from Arena fatua, a grass in no high estimation. 
As it is possible to create, by cultivation, our corn plants from 
inferior grasses, so have we evidence that those plants may be 
transmuted still further. 
Gerarde, an irreproachable witness, saw Oats and Wheat 
growing in the same ear. A gentleman told Dr. Bindley that in 
Germany Oats sown early,and not allowed to produce ears the first 
year, were found in the second year to yield other sorts of corn- 
In 1843 the Marquis of Bristol tried the experiment. Oats were 
sown, and their stems continually stopped; and in 1844 some 
produced a slender kind of Barley, a few yielded Wheat, and 
some still produced Oats. {Gardeners' Chronicle. 1844. 555.) 
* At the New York Exhibition, 1853, a sheath of Oats was exhibited with 
other agricultural produce from California, 30° N. lat., which measured 
10 feet 3 inches in height, the heads averaging from 22 to 28 inches in 
length. 
In 1800, Dr. Anderson quoted an instance of a Dutchman who 
cut his Oats while green three times, and that when they were 
allowed to seed they produced Rye. {Recreations, ii., 779.) 
Similar changes are recorded in 1837 {Loudon's Magazine of 
Natural History) ; and Dr. Weisenborn, who repeatedly tried 
the experiment, adds, “ Let any one sow the Oats at the latter 
end of June, and the transformation will certainly occur.” 
We confess to be of the number who are not surprised by such 
changes ; for we believe that a vast number of plants now con¬ 
sidered distinct species are merely one species altered by soil, 
climate, cross-breeding, and other circumstances. Dr. Lindley 
has found Orchids, differing as much from each other as Wheat, 
Barley, and Oats, are all one and the same species. Mr. Morton, 
already quoted, has raised spring and winter varieties of Tares 
from that diminutive weed, the Narrow-leaved Vetch {Vida 
angustifolia) ; and after a series of sowings we have raised a 
Strawberry worthy of the table from seed originally obtained 
from the Wood Strawberry.— Eds. C. G.J 
Apples oe Sodovi.— “We made a somewhat singular discovery 
when travelling among the mountains to the east of the Dead 
Sea, where the ruins of Ammon, Jerash, and Adjeloun well repay 
the labour and fatigue encountered in visiting them. It was a 
remarkably hot and sultry day : we were scrambling up the 
mountain through a thick jungle of bushes and low trees, when I 
saw before me a fine Plum-tree loaded with fresh blooming 
Plums. I cried out to my fellow-traveller, “ Now, then, who will 
arrive first at the Plum-tree ? ” and as he caught a glimpse of so 
refreshing an object, we both pressed our horses into a gallop to 
see who would get the first Plum from the branches. We both 
arrived at the same moment; and, each snatching at a fine ripe 
Plum, put it at once into our mouths ; when, on biting it, instead 
of the cool delicious juicy fruit which we expected, our mouths 
were filled with a dry bitter dust, and we sat under the tree upon 
our horses sputtering, and hemming, and doing all we could to 
be relieved of the nauseous taste of this strange fruit. We then 
perceived, and to my great delight, that we had discovered the 
famous Apple of the Dead Sea—the existence of which has been 
doubted and canvassed since the days of Strabo and Pliny, who 
first described it. Many travellers have given descriptions of 
other vegetable productions which bear some analogy to the 
one described by Pliny; but up to this time no one had met 
with the thing itself, either upon the spot mentioned by the 
ancient authors, or elsewhere. I brought several of them to 
England. They are a kind of Gall-nut. I found others after¬ 
wards upon the plains of Troy; but there can be no doubt what¬ 
ever that this is the Apple of Sodom to which Strabo and Pliny 
referred. Some of those which I brought to England were given 
to the Linmean Society, who published an engraving of them, 
and a description of their vegetable peculiarities, in their “ Trans¬ 
actions;” but as they omitted to explain the peculiar interest 
attached to them in consequence of their having been sought for 
unsuccessfully for above 1500 years, they excited little attention ; 
though, as the evidence of the truth of what has so long been 
considered as a vulgar fable, they are fairly to be classed among 
the most curious productions which have been brought from the 
I Holy Land.”— {Visits to Monasteries in the Levant, by the Hon. 
Robert Curzon, jun.) 
[This description does not accord with that usually given of 
what are considered the “ Apples of Sodom,”—namely, the fruit 
of the Solanum Sodomeum, or Egg Plant of Sodom. This is a 
prickly shrub, and could not bo mistaken for “a fine Plum 
tree.” The fruit of this Solanum is yellow, and about the size of 
a Walnut. It is very subject to the attacks of an insect, pro¬ 
bably a Cynips, which deposits its eggs within the germen. 
This enlarges into a fruit; and the larva) of the insect, then 
emerging from the eggs, feed upon the pulp of the fruit, leaving 
nothing but an ash-like powder within the entire and unaltered 
rind. Mandeville, an old traveller in Palestine, speaking of the 
Dead Sea, says, “And there besyden growen trees that baren 
fidle faire Apples, and fairo of colour to beholden; butte whosoe 
breakethe them, or cuttethe them in two, he shall finde within 
them coles and cyndres.”— Eds. C. G.J 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Planting Vinks in a Conservatory (2T. B. F .).—You went to the 
trouble of making a proper border for your Vines outside. We would 
prefer them there, and with a box four inches square over the stems after 
you got the Vine high enough to enter the house. The box could be packed 
with sawdust or charcoal, or nothing at all if you did not use much heat 
