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 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. According to De Candolle we owe thirty- three useful plants to Mexico, Peru, and Chile; nor is this surprising when we remember 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 gunpowder, and who, as we shall see in a future chapter, fully recognised, 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 and cultivated. In North America (9/16. For Canada see J. Cartier's Voyage in 1534; for Florida see Narvaez and Ferdinand de Soto's Voyages. As I have consulted these and other old Voyages in more than one general collection of Voyages, I do not give precise references to the pages. See also for several references Asa Gray in the 'American Journal of Science' volume 24 November 1857 page 441. For the traditions of the natives of New Zealand see Crawfurd 'Grammar and Dict. of the Malay Language' 1852 page 260.) the natives cultivated maize, pumpkins, gourds, beans, and peas, "all different from ours," and tobacco; and we are hardly justified in assuming that none of our present plants are descended from these North American forms. Had North America been civilised for as long a period, and as thickly peopled, as Asia or Europe, it is probable that the native vines, walnuts, mulberries, crabs, and plums, would have given rise, after a long course of cultivation, to a multitude of varieties, some extremely different from their parent-stocks; and escaped seedlings would have caused in the New, as in the Old World, much perplexity with respect to their specific distinctness and parentage.' (9/17. See for example Mr. Hewett C. Watson's remarks on our wild plums and cherries and crabs: 'Cybele Britannica' volume 1 pages 330, 334, etc. Van Mons (in his 'Arbres Fruitiers' 1835 tome 1 page 444) declares that he has found the types of all our cultivated varieties in wild seedlings, but then he looks on these seedlings as so many aboriginal stocks.)
[CEREALIA.
I will now enter on details. The cereals cultivated in Europe consist of four genera--wheat, rye, barley, and oats. Of wheat the best modern authorities (9/18. See A. De Candolle 'Geograph. Bot.' 1855 page 928 et seq. Godron 'De l'Espece' 1859 tome 2 page 70; and Metzger 'Die Getreidearten' etc. 1841.) make four or five, or even seven distinct species; of rye, one; of barley, three; and of oats, two, three, or four species. So that altogether our cereals are ranked by different authors under from ten to fifteen distinct species. These have given rise to a multitude of varieties. It is a remarkable fact that botanists are not universally agreed on the aboriginal parent-form of any one cereal plant. For instance, a high authority writes in 1855 (9/19. Mr. Bentham in his review entitled 'Hist. Notes on cultivated Plants' by Dr. A. Targioni- Tozzetti in 'Journal of Hort. Soc.' volume 9 1855 page 133. He informs me that he still retains the same opinion.), "We ourselves have no hesitation in stating our conviction, as the result of all the most reliable evidence, that none of these Cerealia exist, or have existed, truly wild in their present state, but that all are cultivated varieties of species now growing in great abundance in S.