THE TRAVELS OF PLANTS. 
When we look into the origin of our most common 
plants, both useful and useless, not to neglect either 
those which are a nuisance to us, we are led to perceive 
the truth of the common adage that “it is an ill wind 
which blows nobody any good,” and also that no evil, 
however bad it may be, is altogether unmixed with 
good. For we learn in our investigation that most of 
our cherished and useful grains and fruits, and many 
of our most desirable ornamental trees and shrubs have 
been spread abroad and scattered by means of the most 
cruel and destructive wars. At the same time it is also 
true that we owe some of our most noxious and trouble¬ 
some weeds to this same source. Next in importance 
to the agency of armies in this respect we owe most 
to the peaceful enterprises of travelers—those restless, 
inquiring men who are impelled by their love of change 
and novelty to explore the furtherest ends of the earth, 
to penetrate the tangled wilds and deepest recesses of 
vast forests; to brave the hardships of scorching des¬ 
erts, the hostility of cruel and sanguinary savages, the 
poisonous atmosphere of deadly swamps ; to climb the 
beetling crags,'thejtowering - precipices, and the glittering 
glaciers of the highest mountains; to press through the 
ice fields and bear with the bitterest cold which sur¬ 
rounds the inacessible poles, and to force their perilous 
ways wherever the foot of man may be able to tread. 
And in every such expedition the botanist is the first 
and foremost to risk his life in search of some new 
plant which may add to our knowledge or to our enjoy¬ 
ment and give him a reputation among his class of stu¬ 
dents, although outside of this he may be unknown. 
In regard to plants our world was originally very defec¬ 
tive, for many countries were almost devoid of, or very 
deficient in, a stock of such varieties as are now sup¬ 
posed to be indispensable- to human life and comfort. 
The aborigines of Australia were forced to feed upon 
the roots of Ferns and other similar poor plants. The 
ancient Britons made their bread of acorns, and roasted 
beech-nuts furnished them a choice side-dish, while for 
dessert they had nothing better than the bitter astrin¬ 
gent Sloe, the Whortleberry, Blackberry, and Hazel-nut. 
Indeed, it is very true, as the poet has declared, that it 
was a very poor subsistence 
“The fresh-formed earth her hapless offspring dealt.” 
For nearly all our grains, roots, herbs, fruits, and flow¬ 
ers which we now possess and enjoy have been newly 
created, so to speak, by the intelligent culture of 
modern races of men, from out of the poorest and most 
defective varieties which came down to us from the 
aboriginal races. Yet there were some garden spots 
from which we have procured in various ways our 
most valuable varieties, and chief among these locali¬ 
ties favored by soil and climate was Central Asia, the 
cradle, as we believe, of our race. Here, too, were first 
developed the arts of agriculture, and the fruits of this 
oldest civilization in time spread to distant laDds as the 
conqueror marched here and there and subdued the 
savage races. 
Still, the origin of some of our most useful plants is 
enveloped in legends and myths. The vine, which has, 
perhaps, the most ancient history of all, was said to 
have been introduced into Africa by Osiris and into 
Europe by Bacchus. If we -should consider, as we 
properly might, that these “ gods ” were merely embodi¬ 
ments of some human trait or habit, as that which led 
our second father Noah, to plant a vineyard and to 
drink the wine thereof, these legends simply indicate 
the extreme antiquity of the vine, which doubtless 
already bore its ripened clusters when mankind first 
appeared upon the face of the earth; and its native 
bowers no doubt were formed as it hung in its graceful 
curves and festoons among the Fig, the Peach, the 
Almond, and the Apricot trees of Persia. The golden 
fruit of the Garden of the Hesperides was not the 
Orange, but the Citron, for the home of the Orange 
was China. Among other ancient legends we have the 
origin of the Olive attributed to Minerva by the Greeks, 
who also fancied it was brought to Greece by Hercules. 
Here again we may have the idea of the embodiment of 
human skill and art in the goddess and of manly enter¬ 
prise in the god of strength. 
But to come from the realms of poetry and fancy to 
those of hard facts, we know that wheat was first 
grown on the banks of the Indus ; that Barley first 
came from Tartary; that Rye is native to the Crimea; 
that oats was indigenous in Northern Europe and Bri¬ 
tain, and that these two localities at one period were not 
yet separated by the shallow North Sea, for the flora of 
of the island of Great Britian and that of Norway, Den¬ 
mark, and the adjacent European courts is similar in 
many respects, and sunken forests are even now found 
buried in the bed of the dividing sea. The plants of the 
East were doubtless brought westward by colonists and 
conquerors, and others native to the conquered races 
were returned in the way of trade. Thus, after the Ro¬ 
man conquest of Britian the apples of the southern 
shores of the island were taken to Tyre by the Phoeni¬ 
cians, who traded in the tin of Cornwall. These same en¬ 
terprising merchants carried the mulberry to Western 
Europe and planted Carthage, a city whose people were 
the most successful agriculturists of that age. The 
merchants of Tyre were thus, doubtless, the first tree- 
peddlers in existence and probably were as vigorously 
abused as their modern successors in the business now 
are. The great Alexander was the means of the distri¬ 
bution of many useful plants. His armies brought Rice 
from Persia and carried it to Spain, and so started it on 
its travels to our own South Carolina. It is probable 
that we also owe our cotton to this same agency, for it 
was found in the Punjaub by Alexander and through 
him found its way into Egypt, where linen was the only 
cloth at the period of Herodotus, but in Pliny’s time the 
Egyptians were clad in cotton. 
After the Macedonians came the Romans who even 
exceeded their predecessors in this distribution of 
plants. The introduction of new and useful plants 
and their culture were made a business by the Romans, 
and they collected and scattered new kinds with great 
assiduity. The Roman gardens were filled with every 
