that having cultivated the seed of the Egilops, the plant has changed its generic character, and has made approaches to that of wheat*. Sir Joseph Banks, in a paper addressed by him to the Horticultural Society, in the year 1805, stated that having received from a lady some packets of seeds, and among them one labelled " Hill Wheat," the grains of which were hardly larger than those of our wild grasses, but which, when viewed through a magnifying lens, were found exactly to resemble wheat, he sowed these grains in his garden, and was much surprised on obtaining, as their produce, a good crop of spring wheat, the grains of which were of the ordinary size. Every inquiry that was made to ascertain the history of these seeds proved fruitless. All that could be established, with regard to the place of their production, was, that they came from India; but as to the particular locality, or the amount of cultivation they had received, or whether the grain was indeed in that instance a spontaneous offering of nature, could not be ascertained. Experiments such as those we have mentioned, may naturally lead us to think, that in the corn-plants, as in other vegetables, great modifications have been produced by cultivation; but they do not at all interfere with the belief that the cereal grains are spread through the earth by the agency of man alone, and that they are bequests from past ages of civilization too remote to afford any materials for the authentic history of their introduction, even into countries possessing the most ancient records. Other seeds are dispersed throughout the earth by winds and currents, in the hairy coats of quadrupeds, and in the maws of birds. But the corn-plants, in common with many other important vegetable productions, follow the course of man alone. This is a blessing, which even hostile armies

* Dict, Classique d'Histoire Nat., Art, Egilops.

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are instruments in diffusing. Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, inhuman as he was in many parts of his conduct, thus writes from Mexico to the King of Spain: All the plants of Spain thrive admirably in this land. We shall not proceed here as we have done in the isles, where we have neglected cultivation, and destroyed the inhabitants. A sad experience ought to render us more prudent. I beseech your Majesty to give orders that no vessel set sail for this country without a certain quantity of plants and grain." The diffusion of plants useful to man is an accident diminishing the evils of hostile invasion; -it is a necessary attendant of commercial intercourse. The Indians of New England called the plantain, "English-man's foot;" and in the same way, in the infancy of ancient society, wheat might have been similarly regarded as springing from the footsteps of the Persians or the Egyptians. In times approaching nearer to our own, we know that wheat followed the march of the Romans, as the vine was in the train of the Greeks; and, to come still nearer, we find cotton remaining in countries which had otherwise suffered from the incursions of the Arabs. "The migration of these plants," observes Humboldt, "is evident; but their first country is as little known as that of the different races of men which, from the earliest traditions, have been found in all parts of the globe *."

The manner in which the most important gifts of Providence to mankind have been diffused by the influences of conquest or commerce, has some striking instances in the history of America. In the New World such facts are too recent to admit of any doubt. The same class of facts, too, are exhibited in several cases in the history of our empire in Hindostan. We shall give a few examples. *Géographie des Plantes, p. 35.

None of the cereal grasses, properly so called, were found in cultivation among the Mexicans when their country was first visited by Europeans. The founda tion of the wheat harvests at Mexico is said to have been three or four grains which a slave of Cortez discovered in 1530 accidentally mixed with a quantity of rice. The careful negro who preserved and made so advantageous a use of the few grains which a happy chance had thrown in his way, and which, in the hands of a careless or thoughtless person, would, with their future inestimable advantages, have been lost to his country, has not been thought worthy— doubtless because he was a negro-of having his name preserved. The Spanish lady, Maria d'Escobar, wife of Diego de Chaves, who first imparted the same blessing to Peru, by conveying a few grains of wheat to Lima, has been more fortunate. Her name, together with the means which she took for effecting her object, by carefully distributing the produce of successive harvests as seed among the farmers, have been gratefully preserved in the records of history. The exact period when this cultivation was commenced in Peru is not, indeed, known; but it appears reasonable to believe that this event did not occur until after the date assigned for the introduction of wheat into Mexico, as, in the year 1547, wheaten bread was hardly known in the important city of Cuzco. The first grains of wheat which reached Quito were conveyed thither by Father Josse Rixi, a Fleming, who sowed them near the monastery of St. Francis, where the monks still preserve and show, as a precious relic, the rude earthen pot wherein the seeds first reached their establishment. The rice of Carolina is now the principal produce of that portion of North America. Mr. Ashby, an English merchant, at the close of the seventeenth century, sent a hundred weight from China to this

colony; and from this source all the subsequent rice harvests of that division of the New World, and the large exportations of the same valuable grain to Europe, have sprung. The wheat now cultivated in Rohilcund, in India, "was propagated by seed brought from England, since the conquest, by Mr. Hawkins*;" and the potato, within a very few years, has been extensively spread by us through the Indian peninsula, and there, by preventing the exclu sive use of rice, is greatly ameliorating the condition of the native population. Facts such as these are highly interesting; because they exhibit the moral as well as natural causes which influence the distribution of vegetable food throughout the earth. In the following pages we shall endeavour to collect whatever is satisfactorily known as to this branch of our subject. Before we proceed, however, to a particular history of species or varieties of vegetable substances used for the sustenance of man, we shall take a rapid, though necessarily imperfect view, of the distribution of the corn-plants throughout the globe at the present day.

Agriculture can be pursued but very partially within the northern polar circles, where, for the most part, the intenseness of the frosts during a protracted winter binds up the soil,-not otherwise sterile, and condemns it to perpetual unfruitfulness. The utmost limit of the culture of grain in Siberia reaches only to the sixtieth degree of latitude, and in the more eastern parts of the province these important products are scarcely to be met with higher than fifty-five degrees. In the more southern parts of Siberia, and in districts adjoining the Wolga, the land is extraordinarily fertile, so that crops of grain are obtained with a very trifling amount * Heber's Journey, vol. ii. p. 131.

of labour. Buck-wheat is very commonly cultivated in this district; and it is found that one sowing of the seed will produce five or six crops in as many successive years, each harvest yielding from twelve to fifteen times the quantity first sown. The seed

which is shed during the reaping is sufficient to insure the growth of plants for the following year, without any manuring, and with no more labour on the part of the farmer than that of harrowing the land in the spring. This system is continued without intermission until the diminished fertility of the soil compels its abandonment; but, as already mentioned, this state of things rarely occurs until six years have been thus occupied.

It might be thought that in a country thus fertile, the proprietors or cultivators of the soil would speedily become enriched; this, however, is by no means the case. Facilities for transporting their surplus produce are wretchedly deficient, so that the market is extremely circumscribed; and the inhabitants of the country being generally so poor as to be unable to purchase food produced from grain, the farmers limit their cultivation in a great degree to the quantity needed for the supply of their own families. The small amount of labour called for by this cultivation is usually performed by the farmer himself, assisted by the members of his own family; the employment of any other farm-labourers is consequently rare.

All temptation to extend the breadth of culture must be wanting, in a situation where the surplus produce cannot be exchanged, and its value invested in some permanent mode, whereby a larger quantum of human labour may be commanded at any future period.

Europe is indebted to Siberia for a particular description of oats, which are considered excellent ;