Chapter V: Plants Cultivated for Their Seeds (3)

Failing satisfactory proofs of wild plants, I formerly urged, in my _Géographie Botanique Raisonnée_, an argument of some value. _Secale cereale_ sows itself from cultivation, and becomes almost wild in parts of the Austrian empire,[1875] which is seldom seen elsewhere.[1876] Thus in the east of Europe, where history points to an ancient cultivation, rye finds at the present day the most favourable conditions for living without the aid of man. It can hardly be doubted, from these facts, that its original area was in the region comprised between the Austrian Alps and the north of the Caspian Sea. This seems the more probable that the five or six known species of the genus _Secale_ inhabit western temperate Asia or the south-east of Europe.

Admitting this origin, the Aryan natives would not have known the species, as philology already shows us; but in their migrations westward they must have met with it under different names, which they transported here and there.

+Common Oats+ and +Eastern Oats+—_Avena sativa_, Linnæus; _Avena orientalis_, Schreber.

The ancient Egyptians and the Hebrews did not cultivate oats, but they are now grown in Egypt.[1877] There is no Sanskrit name, nor any in modern Indian languages. They are only now and then planted by the English in India for their horses.[1878] The earliest mention of oats in China is in an historical work on the period 618 to 907 A.D.; it refers to the variety known to botanists as _Avena sativa nuda_.[1879] The ancient Greeks knew the genus very well; they called it _bromos_,[1880] as the Latins called it _avena_; but these names were commonly applied to species which are not cultivated, and which are weeds mixed with cereals. There is no proof that they cultivated the common oats. Pliny’s remark[1881] that the Germans lived on oatmeal, implies that the species was not cultivated by the Romans.

The cultivation of oats was, therefore, practised anciently to the north of Italy and of Greece. It was diffused later and partially in the south of the Roman empire. It is possible that it was more ancient in Asia Minor, for Galen[1882] says that oats were abundant in Mysia, above Pergamus; that they were given to horses, and that men used them for food in years of scarcity. A colony of Gauls had formerly penetrated into Asia Minor. Oats have been found among the remains of the Swiss lake-dwellings of the age of bronze,[1883] and in Germany, near Wittenburg, in several tombs of the first centuries of the Christian era, or a little earlier.[1884] Hitherto none have been found in the lake-dwellings of the north of Italy, which confirms the belief that oats were not cultivated in Italy in the time of the Roman republic.

The vernacular names also prove an ancient existence north and west of the Alps, and on the borders of Europe towards Tartary and the Caucasus. The most widely diffused of these names is indicated by the Latin _avena_, Ancient Slav _ovisu_, _ovesu_, _ovsa_, Russian _ovesu_, Lithuanian _awiza_, Lettonian _ausas_, Ostias _abis_.[1885] The English word _oats_ comes, according to A. Pictet, from the Anglo-Saxon _ata_ or _ate_. The Basque name, _olba_ or _oloa_,[1886] argues a very ancient Iberian cultivation.

The Keltic names are quite different:[1887] Irish _coirce_, _cuirce_, _corca_, Armorican _kerch_. Tartar _sulu_, Georgian _kari_, Hungarian _zab_, Croat _zob_, Esthonian _kaer_, and others are mentioned by Nemnich[1888] as applying to the generic name oats, but it is not likely that names so varied do not belong to a cultivated species. It is strange that there should be an independent Berber name _zekkoum_,[1889] as there is nothing to show that the species was anciently cultivated in Africa.

All these facts show how erroneous is the opinion which reigned in the last century,[1890] that oats were brought originally from the island of Juan Fernandez, a belief which came apparently from an assertion of the navigator Anson.[1891] It is evidently not in the Austral hemisphere that we must seek for the home of the species, but in those countries of the northern hemisphere where it was anciently cultivated.

Oats sow themselves on rubbish-heaps, by the wayside, and near cultivated ground more easily than other cereals, and sometimes persist in such a way as to appear wild. This has been observed in widely separate places, as Algeria and Japan, Paris and the north of China.[1892] Instances of this nature render us sceptical as to the wild nature of the oats which Bové said he found in the desert of Sinai. It has also been said[1893] that the traveller Olivier saw oats wild in Persia, but he does not mention the fact in his work. Besides, several annual species nearly resembling oats may deceive the traveller. I cannot discover either in books or herbaria the existence of really wild oats either in Europe or Asia, and Bentham has assured me that there are no such specimens in the herbarium at Kew; but certainly the half-wild or naturalized condition is more frequent in the Austrian states from Dalmatia to Transylvania[1894] than elsewhere. This is an indication of origin which may be added to the historical and philological arguments in favour of eastern temperate Europe.

_Avena strigosa_, Schreber, appears to be a variety of the common oats, judging from the experiments in cultivation mentioned by Bentham, who adds, it is true, that these need confirmation.[1895] There is a good drawing of the variety in Host, _Icones Graminum Austriacorum_, ii. pl. 56, which may be compared with _A. sativa_, pl. 59. For the rest, _Avena strigosa_ has not been found wild. It exists in Europe in deserted fields, which confirms the hypothesis that it is a form derived by cultivation.

_Avena orientalis_, Schreber, of which the spikelets lean all to one side, has also been grown in Europe from the end of the eighteenth century. It is not known in a wild state. Often mixed with common oats, it is not to be distinguished from them at a glance. The names it bears in Germany, Turkish or Hungarian oats, points to a modern introduction from the East. Host gives a good drawing of it (_Gram. Austr._, i. pl. 44).

As all the varieties of oats are cultivated, and none have been discovered in a truly wild state, it is very probable that they are all derived from a single prehistoric form, a native of eastern temperate Europe and of Tartary.

+Common Millet+—_Panicum miliaceum_, Linnæus.

The cultivation of this plant is prehistoric in the south of Europe, in Egypt, and in Asia. The Greeks knew it by the name _kegchros_, and the Latins by that of _milium_.[1896] The Swiss lake-dwellers of the age of stone made great use of millet,[1897] and it has also been found in the remains of the lake-dwellings of Varese in Italy.[1898] As we do not elsewhere find specimens of these early times, it is impossible to know what was the _panicum_ or the _sorghum_ mentioned by Latin authors which was used as food by the inhabitants of Gaul, Panonia, and other countries. Unger[1899] counts _P. miliaceum_ among the species of ancient Egypt, but it does not appear that he had positive proof of this, for he has mentioned no monument, drawing, or seed found in the tombs. Nor is there any material proof of ancient cultivation in Mesopotamia, India, and China. For the last-named country it is a question whether the _shu_, one of the five cereals sown by the emperors in the great yearly ceremony, is _Panicum miliaceum_, an allied species, or sorghum; but it appears that the sense of the word _shu_ has changed, and that formerly it was perhaps sorghum which was sown.[1900]

Anglo-Indian botanists[1901] attribute two Sanskrit names to the modern species, _ûnû_ and _vreehib-heda_, although the modern Hindu and Bengali name _cheena_ and the Telinga name _worga_ are quite different. If the Sanskrit names are genuine, they indicate an ancient cultivation in India. No Hebrew nor Berber name is known,[1902] but there are Arab names, _dokhn_, used in Egypt, and _kosjæjb_ in Arabia.[1903] There are various European names. Besides the Greek and Latin words, there is an ancient Slav name, _proso_,[1904] retained in Russia and Poland, an old German word _hirsi_, and a Lithuanian name _sora_.[1905] The absence of Keltic names is remarkable. It appears that the species was cultivated especially in Eastern Europe, and spread westward towards the end of the Gallic dominion.

With regard to its wild existence, Linnæus says[1906] that it inhabits India, and most authors repeat this; but Anglo-Indian botanists[1907] always give it as cultivated. It is not found in Japanese floras. In the north of China de Bunge only saw it cultivated,[1908] and Maximowicz near the Ussuri, on the borders of fields and in places near Chinese dwellings.[1909] Ledebour says[1910] it is nearly wild in Altaic Siberia and Central Russia, and wild south of the Caucasus and in the country of Talysch. He quotes Hohenacker for the last-named locality, who, however, says only “nearly wild.”[1911] In the Crimea, where it furnishes bread for the Tartars, it is found here and there nearly wild,[1912] which is also the case in the south of France, in Italy, and in Austria.[1913] It is not wild in Greece,[1914] and no one has found it in Persia or in Syria. Forskal and Delile indicated it in Egypt, but Ascherson does not admit this;[1915] and Forskal gives it in Arabia.[1916] The species may have become naturalized in these regions, as the result of frequent cultivation from the time of the ancient Egyptians. However, its wild nature is so doubtful elsewhere, that its Egypto-Arabian origin is very probable.

+Italian Millet+—_Panicum Italicum_, Linnæus; _Setaria Italica_, Beauvois.

The cultivation of this species was very common in the temperate parts of the old world in prehistoric times. Its seeds served as food for man, though now they are chiefly given to birds.

In China it is one of the five plants which the emperor sows each year in a public ceremony, according to the command issued by Chin-nong 2700 B.C.[1917] The common name is _siao mi_ (little seed), the more ancient name being _ku_; but the latter seems to be applied also to a very different species.[1918] Pickering says he recognized it in two ancient Egyptian drawings, and that it is now cultivated in Egypt[1919] under the name _dokhn_; but that is the name of _Panicum miliaceum_. It is, therefore, very doubtful that the ancient Egyptians cultivated it. It has been found among the remains of the Swiss lake-dwellings of the stone epoch, and therefore _à fortiori_ among the lake-dwellers of the subsequent epoch in Savoy.[1920]

The ancient Greeks and Latins did not mention it, or at least it has not been possible to certify it from what they say of several panicums and millets. In our own day the species is rarely cultivated in the south of Europe, not at all in Greece,[1921] for instance, and I do not find it indicated in Egypt, but it is common in Southern Asia.[1922]

The Sanskrit names _kungû_ and _priyungû_, of which the first is retained in Bengali,[1923] are attributed to this species. Piddington mentions several other names in Indian languages in his _Index_. Ainslie[1924] gives a Persian name, _arzun_, and an Arabic name; but the latter is commonly attributed to _Panicum miliaceum_. There is no Hebrew name, and the plant is not mentioned in botanical works upon Egypt and Arabia. The European names have no historical value. They are not original, and commonly refer to the transmission of the species or to its cultivation in a given country. The specific name, _italicum_, is an absurd example, the plant being rarely cultivated and never wild in Italy.

Rumphius says it is wild in the Sunda Isles, but not very positively.[1925] Linnæus probably started from this basis to exaggerate and even promulgate an error, saying, “inhabits the Indies.”[1926] It certainly does not come from the West Indies; and further, Roxburgh asserts that he never saw it wild in India. The Graminæ have not yet appeared in Sir Joseph Hookers flora; but Aitchison[1927] gives the species as only cultivated in the north-west of India. The Australian plant which Robert Brown said belonged to this species belongs to another.[1928] _P. italicum_ appears to be wild in Japan, at least in the form called _germanica_ by different authors,[1929] and the Chinese consider the five cereals of the annual ceremony to be natives of their country. Yet Bunge, in the north of China, and Maximowicz in the basin of the river Amur, only saw the species cultivated on a large scale, in the form of the _germanica_ variety.[1930] In Persia,[1931] the Caucasus Mountains, and Europe, I only find in floras the plant indicated as cultivated, or escaped sometimes from cultivation on rubbish-heaps, waysides, waste ground, etc.[1932]

The sum of the historical, philological, and botanical data make me think that the species existed before all cultivation, thousands of years ago in China, Japan, and in the Indian Archipelago. Its cultivation must have early spread towards the West, since we know of Sanskrit names, but it does not seem to have been known in Syria, Arabia, and Greece, and it is probably through Russia and Austria that it early arrived among the lake-dwellers of the stone age in Switzerland.

+Common Sorghum+—_Holcus sorghum_, Linnæus; _Andropogon sorghum_, Brotero; _Sorghum vulgare_, Persoon.

Botanists are not agreed as to the distinction of several of the species of sorghum, and even as to the genera into which this group of the Graminæ should be divided. A good monograph on the sorghums is needed, as in the case of the panicums. In the mean time I will give some information on the principal species, because of their immense importance as food for man, rearing of poultry, and as fodder for cattle.

We may take as a typical species the sorghum cultivated in Europe, as it is figured by Host in his _Graminœ Austriacœ_ (iv. pi. 2). It is one of the plants most commonly cultivated by the modern Egyptians, under the name of _dourra_, and also in equatorial Africa, India, and China.[1933] It is so productive in hot countries that it is a staple food of immense populations in the old world.

Linnæus and all authors, even our contemporaries, say that it is of Indian origin; but in the first edition of Roxburgh’s flora, published in 1820, this botanist, who should have been consulted, asserts that he had only seen it cultivated. He makes the same remark for the allied forms (_bicolor_, _saccharatus_, etc.), which are often regarded as mere varieties. Aitchison also had only seen the sorghum cultivated. The absence of a Sanskrit name also renders the Indian origin very doubtful. Bretschneider, on the other hand, says the sorghum is indigenous in China, although he says that ancient Chinese authors have not spoken of it. It is true that he quotes a name, common at Pekin, _kao-liang_ (tall millet), which also applies to _Holcus saccharatus_, and to which it is better suited.

The sorghum has not been found among the remains of the lake-dwellings of Switzerland and Italy. The Greeks never spoke of it. Pliny’s phrase[1934] about a _milium_ introduced into Italy from India in his time has been supposed to refer to the sorghum; but it was a taller plant, perhaps _Holcus saccharatus_. The sorghum has not been found in a natural state in the tombs of ancient Egypt. Dr. Hannerd thought he recognized it in some crushed seeds brought by Rosellini from Thebes;[1935] but Mr. Birch, the keeper of Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum, has more recently declared that the species has not been found in the ancient tombs.[1936] Pickering says he recognized its leaves mixed with those of the papyrus. He says he also saw paintings of it; and Leipsius has copies of drawings which he, as well as Unger and Wilkinson, takes to be the _dourra_ of modern cultivation.[1937] The height and the form of the ear are undoubtedly those of the sorghum. It is possible that this species is the _dochan_, once mentioned in the Old Testament[1938] as a cereal from which bread was made; yet the modern Arabic word _dokhn_ refers to the sweet sorghum.

Common names tell us nothing, either from their lack of meaning, or because in many cases the same name has been applied to the different kinds of panicum and sorghum. I can find none which is certain in the ancient languages of India or Western Asia, which argues an introduction of but few centuries before the Christian era.

No botanist mentions the _dourra_ as wild in Egypt or in Arabia. An analogous form is wild in equatorial Africa, but R. Brown has not been able to identify it,[1939] and the flora of tropical Africa in course of publication at Kew has not yet reached the order Graminæ. There remains, therefore, the single assertion of Dr. Bretschneider, that the tall sorghum is indigenous in China. If it is really the species in question, it spread westward very late. But it was known to the ancient Egyptians, and how could they have received it from China while it remained unknown to the intermediate peoples? It is easier to understand that it is indigenous in tropical Africa, and was introduced into Egypt in prehistoric time, afterwards into India, and finally into China, where its cultivation does not seem to be very ancient, for the first work which mentions it belongs to the fourth century of our era.

In support of the theory of African origin, I may quote the observation of Schmidt,[1940] that the species abounds in the island of San Antonio, in the Cape Verde group, in rocky places. He believes it to be “completely naturalized,” which perhaps conceals a true origin.

+Sweet Sorghum+—_Holcus saccharatus_, Linnæus; _Andropogon saccharatus_, Roxburgh; _Sorghum saccharatum_, Persoon.

This species, taller than the common sorghum and with a loose panicle,[1941] is cultivated in tropical countries for the seed—which, however, is not so good as that of the common sorghum—and in less hot countries as fodder, or even for the sugar which the stem contains in considerable quantities. The Chinese extract a spirit from it, but not sugar.

The opinion of botanists and of the public in general is that it comes from India; but Roxburgh says that it is only cultivated in that country. It is the same in the Sunda Isles, where the _battari_ is certainly this species. It is the _kao-liang_, or great millet of the Chinese. It is not said to be indigenous in China, nor is it mentioned by Chinese authors who lived before the Christian era.[1942] From these facts, and the absence of any Sanskrit name, the Asiatic origin seems to me a delusion.

The plant is now cultivated in Egypt less than the common sorghum, and in Arabia under the name _dokhna_ or _dokhn_.[1943] No botanist has seen it wild in these countries. There is no proof that the ancient Egyptians cultivated it. Herodotus[1944] spoke of a “tree-millet” in the plains of Assyria. It might be the species in question, but it is not possible to prove it.

The Greeks and Romans were not acquainted with it, not at least before the Roman empire, but it is possible that this was the millet, seven feet high, which Pliny mentions[1945] as having been introduced from India in his lifetime.

We must probably seek its origin in tropical Africa, where the species is generally cultivated. Sir William Hooker[1946] mentions specimens from the banks of the river Nun, which were perhaps wild. The approaching publication of the Graminæ in the flora of tropical Africa will probably throw some light on this question. The spread of its cultivation from the interior of Africa to Egypt after the Pharaohs, to Arabia, the Indian Archipelago, and, after the epoch of Sanskrit, to India, lastly to China, towards the beginning of our era, tallies with historical data, and is not difficult to admit. The inverse hypothesis of a transmission from east to west presents a number of objections.

Several varieties of sorghum are cultivated in Asia and in Africa; for instance, _cernuus_ with drooping panicles, mentioned by Roxburgh, and which Prosper Alpin had seen in Egypt; _bicolor_, which in height resembles the _saccharatus_; and _niger_ and _rubens_, which also seem to be varieties of cultivation. None of these has been found wild, and it is probable that a monograph would connect them with one or other of the above-mentioned species.

+Coracan+—_Eleusine coracana_, Gærtner.

This annual grass, which resembles the millets, is cultivated especially in India and the Malay Archipelago. It is also grown in Egypt[1947] and in Abyssinia;[1948] but the silence of many botanists, who have mentioned the plants of the interior and west of Africa, shows that its cultivation is not widely spread on that continent. In Japan[1949] it sometimes escapes from cultivation. The seeds will ripen in the south of Europe, but the plant is valueless there except as fodder.[1950]

No author mentions having found it in a wild state in Asia or in Africa. Roxburgh,[1951] who is attentive to such matters, after speaking of its cultivation, adds, “I never saw it wild.” He distinguishes under the name _Eleusine stricta_ a form even more commonly cultivated in India, which appears to be simply a variety of _E. coracana_, and which also he has not found uncultivated.

We shall discover its country by other means.

In the first place, the species of the genus _Eleusine_ are more numerous in the south of Asia than in other tropical regions. Besides the cultivated plant, Royle[1952] mentions other species, of which the poorer natives of India gather the seeds in the plains. According to Piddington’s _Index_, there is a Sanskrit name, _rajika_, and several other names in the modern languages of India. That of _coracana_ comes from an old name used in Ceylon, _kourakhan_.[1953] In the Malay Archipelago the names appear less numerous and less original.

In Egypt the cultivation of this species is perhaps not very ancient. The monuments of antiquity bear no trace of it. Græco-Roman authors who knew the country did not speak of it, nor later Prosper Alpin, Forskal, and Delile. We must refer to a modern work, that of Schweinfurth and Ascherson, to find mention of the species, and I cannot even discover an Arab name.[1954] Thus botany, history, and philology point to an Indian origin. The flora of British India, in which the Graminæ have not yet appeared, will perhaps tell us the plant has been found wild in recent explorations.

A nearly allied species is grown in Abyssinia, _Eleusine Tocussa_, Fresenius,[1955] a plant very little known, which is perhaps a native of Africa.

+Rice+—_Oryza sativa_, Linnæus.

In the ceremony instituted by the Chinese Emperor Chin-nong, 2800 years B.C., rice plays the principal part. The reigning emperor must himself sow it, whereas the four other species are or may be sown by the princes of his family.[1956] The five species are considered by the Chinese as indigenous, and it must be admitted that this is probably the case with rice, which is in general use, and has been so for a long time; in a country intersected by canals and rivers, and hence peculiarly favourable to aquatic plants. Botanists have not sufficiently studied Chinese plants for us to know whether rice is often found outside cultivated ground; but Loureiro[1957] had seen it in marshes in Cochin-China.

Rumphius and modern writers upon the Malay Archipelago give it only as a cultivated plant. The multitude of names and varieties points to a very ancient cultivation. In British India it dates at least from the Aryan invasion, for rice has Sanskrit names, _vrihi_, _arunya_[1958] whence come, probably, several names in modern Indian languages, and _oruza_ or _oruzon_ of the ancient Greeks, _rouz_ or _arous_ of the Arabs. Theophrastus[1959] mentioned rice as cultivated in India. The Greeks became acquainted with it through Alexander’s expedition. “According to Aristobulus,” says Strabo,[1960] “rice grows in Bactriana, Babylonia, Susida;” and he adds, “we may also add in Lower Syria.” Further on he notes that the Indians use it for food, and extract a spirit from it. These assertions, doubtful perhaps for Bactriana, show that this cultivation was firmly established, at least, from the time of Alexander (400 B.C.), in the Euphrates valley, and from the beginning of our era in the hot and irrigated districts of Syria. The Old Testament does not mention rice, but a careful and judicious writer, Reynier,[1961] has remarked several passages in the Talmud which relate to its cultivation. These facts lead us to suppose that the Indians employed rice after the Chinese, and that it spread still later towards the Euphrates—earlier, however, than the Aryan invasion into India. A thousand years elapsed between the existence of this cultivation in Babylonia and its transportation into Syria, whence its introduction into Egypt after an interval of probably two or three centuries. There is no trace of rice among the grains or paintings of ancient Egypt.[1962] Strabo, who had visited this country as well as Syria, does not say that rice was cultivated in Egypt in his time, but that the Garamantes[1963] grew it, and this people is believed to have inhabited an oasis to the south of Carthage. It is possible that they received it from Syria. At all events, Egypt could not long fail to possess a crop so well suited to its peculiar conditions of irrigation. The Arabs introduced the species into Spain, as we see from the Spanish name _arroz_. Rice was first cultivated in Italy in 1468, near Pisa.[1964] It is of recent introduction into Louisiana.

When I said that the cultivation of rice in India was probably more recent than in China, I did not mean that the plant was not wild there. It belongs to a family of which the species cover wide areas, and, besides, aquatic plants have commonly more extensive habitations than others. Rice existed, perhaps, before all cultivation in Southern Asia from China to Bengal, as is shown by the variety of names in the monosyllabic languages of the races between India and China.[1965] It has been found outside cultivation in several Indian localities, according to Roxburgh.[1966] He says that wild rice, called _newaree_ by the Telingas, grows in abundance on the shores of lakes in the country of the Circars. Its grain is prized by rich Hindus, but it is not planted because it is not very productive. Roxburgh has no doubt that this is the original plant. Thomson[1967] found wild rice at Moradabad, in the province of Delhi. Historical reasons support the idea that these specimens are indigenous. Otherwise they might be supposed to be the result of the habitual cultivation of the species, all the more that there are examples of the facility with which rice sows itself and becomes naturalized in warm, damp climates.[1968] In any case historical evidence and botanical probability tend to the belief that rice existed in India before cultivation.[1969]

+Maize+—_Zea mays_, Linnæus.

“Maize is of American origin, and has only been introduced into the old world since the discovery of the new. I consider these two assertions as positive, in spite of the contrary opinion of some authors, and the doubts of the celebrated agriculturist Bonafous, to whom we are indebted for the most complete treatise upon maize.”[1970] I used these words in 1855, after having already contested the opinion of Bonafous at the time of the publication of his work.[1971] The proofs of an American origin have been since reinforced. Yet attempts have been made to prove the contrary, and as the French name, _blé de Turquie_, gives currency to an error, it is as well to resume the discussion with new data.

No one denies that maize was unknown in Europe at the time of the Roman empire, but it has been said that it was brought from the East in the Middle Ages. The principal argument is based upon a charter of the thirteenth century, published by Molinari,[1972] according to which two crusaders, companions in arms of Boniface III., Marquis of Monferrat, gave in 1204 to the town of Incisa a piece of the true cross ... and a purse containing a kind of seed of a golden colour and partly white, unknown in the country and brought from Anatolia, where it was called _meliga_. etc. The historian of the crusades, Michaux, and later Daru and Sismondi, said a great deal about this charter; but the botanist Delile, as well as Targionitozzetti and Bonafous himself, thought that the seed in question might belong to some sorghum and not to maize. These old discussions have been rendered absurd by the Comte de Riant’s discovery[1973] that the charter of Incisa is the fabrication of a modern impostor. I quote this instance to show how scholars who are not naturalists may make mistakes in the interpretation of the names of plants, and also how dangerous it is to rely upon an isolated proof in historical questions.

The names _blé de Turquie_, Turkish wheat (Indian corn), given to maize in almost all modern European languages no more prove an Eastern origin than the charter of Incisa. These names are as erroneous as that of _coq d’Inde_, in English _turkey_, given to an American bird. Maize is called in Lorraine and in the Vosges Roman corn; in Tuscany, Sicilian corn; in Sicily, Indian corn; in the Pyrenees, Spanish corn; in Provence, Barbary or Guinea corn. The Turks call it Egyptian corn, and the Egyptians, Syrian _dourra_. This last case proves at least that it is neither Egyptian nor Syrian. The widespread name of Turkish wheat dates from the sixteenth century. It sprang from an error as to the origin of the plant, which was fostered perhaps by the tufts which terminate the ears of maize, which were compared to the beard of the Turks, or by the vigour of the plant, which may have given rise to an expression similar to the French _fort comme un turc_. The first botanist who uses the name, Turkish wheat, is Ruellius, in 1536.[1974] Bock or Tragus,[1975] in 1552, after giving a drawing of the species which he calls _Frumentum turcicum_, _Welschkorn_, in Germany, having learnt by merchants that it came from India, conceived the unfortunate idea that it was a certain _typha_ of Bactriana, to which ancient authors alluded in vague terms. Dodoens in 1583, Camerarius in 1588, and Matthiole[1976] rectified these errors, and positively asserted the American origin. They adopted the name _mays_, which they knew to be American. We have seen (p. 363) that the zea of the Greeks was a spelt. Certainly the ancients did not know maize. The first travellers[1977] who described the productions of the new world were surprised at it, a clear proof that they had not known it in Europe. Hernandez,[1978] who left Europe in 1571, according to some authorities, in 1593 according to others,[1979] did not know that from the year 1500 maize had been sent to Seville for cultivation. This fact, attested by Fée, who has seen the municipal records,[1980] clearly shows the American origin, which caused Hernandez to think the name of Turkish wheat a very bad one.

It may perhaps be urged that maize, new to Europe in the sixteenth century, existed in some parts of Asia or Africa before the discovery of America. Let us see what truth there may be in this.

The famous orientalist D’Herbelot[1981] had accumulated several errors pointed out by Bonafous and by me, on the subject of a passage in the Persian historian Mirkoud of the fifteenth century, about a cereal which Rous, son of Japhet, sowed upon the shores of the Caspian Sea, and which he takes to be the Indian corn of our day. It is hardly worth considering these assertions of a scholar to whom it had never occurred to consult the works of the botanists of his own day, or earlier. What is more important is the total silence on the subject of maize of the travellers who visited Asia and Africa before the discovery of America; also the absence of Hebrew and Sanskrit names for this plant; and lastly, that Egyptian monuments present no specimen or drawing of it.[1982] Rifaud, it is true, found an ear of maize in a sarcophagus at Thebes, but it is believed to have been the trick of an Arab impostor. If maize had existed in ancient Egypt, it would be seen in all monuments, and would have been connected with religious ideas like all other remarkable plants. A species so easy of cultivation would have spread into all neighbouring countries. Its cultivation would not have been abandoned; and we find, on the contrary, that Prosper Alpin, visiting Egypt in 1592, does not speak of it, and that Forskal,[1983] at the end of the eighteenth century, mentioned maize as still but little grown in Egypt, where it had no name distinct from the sorghums. Ebn Baithar, an Arab physician of the thirteenth century, who had travelled through the countries lying between Spain and Persia, indicates no plant which can be supposed to be maize.

J. Crawfurd,[1984] having seen maize generally cultivated in the Malay Archipelago under a name _jarung_, which appears to be indigenous, believed that the species was a native of these islands. But then how is it Rumphius makes no mention of it. The silence of this author points to an introduction later than the seventeenth century. Maize was so little diffused on the continent of India in the last century, that Roxburgh[1985] wrote in his flora, which was published long after it was drawn up, “Cultivated in different parts of India in gardens, and only as an ornament, but nowhere on the continent of India as an object of cultivation on a large scale.” We have seen that there is no Sanskrit name.

Maize is frequently cultivated in China in modern times, and particularly round Pekin for several generations,[1986] although most travellers of the last century make no mention of it. Dr. Bretschneider, in his work published in 1870, does not hesitate to say that maize is not indigenous in China; but some words in his letter of 1881 make me think that he now attributes some importance to an ancient Chinese author, of whom Bonafous and afterwards Hance and Mayers have said a great deal. This is a work by Li-chi-tchin, entitled _Phen-thsao-kang-mou_, or _Pên-tsao-kung-mu_, a species of treatise on natural history, which Bretschneider[1987] says was written at the end of the sixteenth century. Bonafous says it was concluded in 1578, and the edition which he had seen in the Huzard library was of 1637. It contains a drawing of maize with the Chinese character. This plate is copied in Bonafous’ work, at the beginning of the chapter on the original country of the maize. It is clear that it represents the plant. Dr. Hance[1988] appears to have based his arguments upon the researches of Mayers, who says that early Chinese authors assert that maize was imported from Sifan (Lower Mongolia, to the west of China) long before the end of the fifteenth century, at an unknown date. The article contains a copy of the drawing in the _Pên-tsao-kung-mu_, to which he assigns the date 1597.

The importation through Mongolia is improbable to such a degree that it is hardly worth speaking of it, and as for the principal assertion of the Chinese author, the dates are uncertain and late. The work was finished in 1578 according to Bonafous, in 1597 according to Mayers. If this be true, and especially if the second of these dates is the true one, it may be admitted that maize was brought to China after the discovery of America. The Portuguese came to Java in 1496,[1989] that is to say four years after the discovery of America, and to China in 1516.[1990] Magellan’s voyage from South America to the Philippine Islands took place in 1520. During the fifty-eight or seventy-seven years between 1516 and the dates assigned to the Chinese work, seeds of maize may have been taken to China by navigators from America or from Europe. Dr. Bretschneider wrote to me recently that the Chinese did not know the new world earlier than the Europeans, and that the lands to the east of their country, to which there are some allusions in their ancient writings, are the islands of Japan. He had already quoted the opinion of a Chinese savant, that the introduction of maize in the neighbourhood of Pekin dates from the last years of the Ming dynasty, which ended in 1644. This date agrees with the other facts. The introduction into Japan was probably of later date, since Kæmpfer makes no mention of the species.[1991]

From all these facts, we conclude that maize is not a native of the old world. It became rapidly diffused in it after the discovery of America, and this very rapidity completes the proof that, had it existed anywhere in Asia or Africa, it would have played an important part in agriculture for thousands of years.

We shall see that the facts are quite contrary to these in America.

At the time of the discovery of the new continent, maize was one of the staples of its agriculture, from the La Plata valley to the United States. It had names in all the languages.[1992] The natives planted it round their temporary dwellings where they did not form a fixed population. The burial-mounds of the natives of North America who preceded those of our day, the tombs of the Incas, the catacombs of Peru, contain ears or grains of maize, just as the monuments of ancient Egypt contain grains of barley and wheat and millet-seed. In Mexico, a goddess who bore a name derived from that of maize (_Cinteutl_, from _Cintli_) answered to the Ceres of the Greeks, for the first-fruits of the maize harvest were offered to her, as the first-fruits of our cereals to the Greek goddess. At Cusco the virgins of the sun offered sacrifices of bread made from Indian corn. Nothing is better calculated to show the antiquity and generality of the cultivation of a plant than this intimate connection with the religious rites of the ancient inhabitants. We must not, however, attribute to these indications the same importance in America as in the old world. The civilization of the Peruvians under the Incas, and that of the Toltecs and Aztecs in Mexico, has not the extraordinary antiquity of the civilizations of China, Chaldea, and Egypt. It dates at earliest from the beginning of the Christian era; but the cultivation of maize is more ancient than the monuments, to judge from the numerous varieties of the species found in them, and their dispersal into remote regions.

A yet more remarkable proof of antiquity has been discovered by Darwin. He found ears of Indian corn, and eighteen species of shells of our epoch, buried in the soil of the shore in Peru, now at least eighty-five feet above the level of the sea.[1993] This maize was perhaps not cultivated, but in this case it would be yet more interesting, as an indication of the origin of the species.

Although America has been explored by a great number of botanists, none have found maize in the conditions of a wild plant.

Auguste de Saint-Hilaire[1994] thought he recognized the wild type in a singular variety, of which each grain is enclosed within its sheath or bract. It is known at Buenos-Ayres under the name _pinsigallo_. It is _Zea Mays tunicata_ of Saint-Hilaire, of which Bonafous gives an illustration, pl. 5, _bis_, under the name _Zea cryptosperma_. Lindley[1995] also gives a description and a drawing from seeds brought, it is said, from the Rocky Mountains, but this is not confirmed by recent Californian floras. A young Guarany, born in Paraguay on its frontiers, had recognized this maize, and told Saint-Hilaire that it grew in the damp forests of his country. This is very insufficient proof that it is indigenous. No traveller to my knowledge has seen this plant wild in Paraguay or Brazil. But it is an interesting fact that it has been cultivated in Europe, and that it often passes into the ordinary state of maize. Lindley observed it when it had been only two or three years in cultivation, and Professor Radic obtained from one sowing 225 ears of the form _tunicata_, and 105 of the common form with naked grains.[1996] Evidently this form, which might be believed a true species, but whose country is, however, doubtful, is hardly even a race. It is one of the innumerable varieties, more or less hereditary, of which botanists who are considered authorities make only a single species, because of their want of stability and the transitions which they frequently present.

On the condition of _Zea Mays_, and its habitation in America before it was cultivated, we have nothing but conjectural knowledge. I will state what I take to be the sum of this, because it leads to certain probable indications.

I remark first that maize is a plant singularly unprovided with means of dispersion and protection. The grains are hard to detach from the ear, which is itself enveloped. They have no tuft or wing to catch the wind, and when the ear is not gathered by man the grains fall still fixed in the receptacle, and then rodents and other animals must destroy them in quantities, and all the more that they are not sufficiently hard to pass intact through the digestive organs. Probably so unprotected a species was becoming more and more rare in some limited region, and was on the point of becoming extinct, when a wandering tribe of savages, having perceived its nutritious qualities, saved it from destruction by cultivating it. I am the more disposed to believe that its natural area was small that the species is unique; that is to say, that it constitutes what is called a single-typed genus. The genera which contain few species, and especially the monotypes, have as a rule more restricted areas than others. Palæontology will perhaps one day show whether there ever existed in America several species of _Zea_, or similar Graminæ, of which maize is the last survivor. Now, the genus Zea is not only a monotype, but stands almost alone in its family. A single genus, _Euchlæna_ of Schrader, may be compared with it, of which there is one species in Mexico and another in Guatemala; but it is a quite distinct genus, and there are no intermediate forms between it and _Zea_.

Wittmack has made some curious researches in order to discover which variety of maize probably represents the form belonging to the epoch anterior to cultivation. For this purpose he has compared ears and grains taken from the mounds of North America with those from Peru. If these monuments offered only one form of maize, the result would be important, but several different varieties have been found in the mounds and in Peru. This is not very surprising; these monuments are not very ancient. The cemetery of Ancon in Peru, whence Wittmack obtained his best specimens, is nearly contemporary with the discovery of America.[1997] Now, at that epoch the number of varieties was already considerable, which proves a much more ancient cultivation.

Experiments in sowing varieties of maize in uncultivated ground several years in succession would perhaps show a reversion to some common form which might then be considered as the original stock, but nothing of this kind has been attempted. The varieties have only been observed to lack stability in spite of their great diversity.

As to the habitation of the unknown primitive form, the following considerations may enable us to guess it. Settled populations can only have been formed where nutritious species existed naturally in soil easy of cultivation. The potato, the sweet potato, and maize doubtless fulfilled these conditions in America, and as the great populations of this part of the world existed first in the high grounds of Chili and Mexico, it is there probably that wild maize existed. We must not look for it in the low-lying regions such as Paraguay and the banks of the Amazon, or the hot districts of Guiana, Panama, and Mexico, since their inhabitants were formerly less numerous. Besides, forests are unfavourable to annuals, and maize does not thrive in the warm damp climates where manioc is grown.[1998] On the other hand, its transmission from one tribe to another is easier to comprehend if we suppose the point of departure in the centre, than if we place it at one of the limits of the area over which the species was cultivated at the time of the Incas and the Toltecs, or rather of the Mayas, Nahuas, and Chibehas, who preceded these. The migrations of peoples have not always followed a fixed course from north to south, or from south to north. They have taken different directions according to the epoch and the country.[1999] The ancient Peruvians scarcely knew the Mexicans, and _vice versâ_, as the total difference of their beliefs and customs shows. As they both early cultivated maize, we must suppose an intermediate point of departure. New Granada seems to me to fulfil these conditions. The nation called Chibcha which occupied the table-land of Bogota at the time of the Spanish conquest, and considered itself aboriginal, was an agricultural people. It enjoyed a certain degree of civilization, as the monuments recently investigated show. Perhaps this tribe first possessed and cultivated maize. It marched with Peru, then but little civilized, on the one hand, and with the Mayas on the other, who occupied Central America and Yucatan. These were often at war with the Nahuas, predecessors of the Toltecs and the Aztecs in Mexico. There is a tradition that Nahualt, chief of the Nahuas, taught the cultivation of maize.[2000]

I dare not hope that maize will be found wild, although its habitation before it was cultivated was probably so small that botanists have perhaps not yet come across it. The species is so distinct from all others, and so striking, that natives or unscientific colonists would have noticed and spoken of it. The certainty as to its origin will probably come rather from archæological discoveries. If a great number of monuments in all parts of America are studied, if the hieroglyphical inscriptions of some of these are deciphered, and if dates of migrations and economical events are discovered, our hypothesis will be justified, modified, or rejected.

_Article II._—Seeds used for Different Purposes.

+Poppy+—_Papaver somniferum_, Linnæus.

The poppy is usually cultivated for the oil contained in the seed, and sometimes, especially in Asia, for the sap, extracted by making incisions in the capsules, and from which opium is obtained.

The variety which has been cultivated for centuries escapes readily from cultivation, or becomes almost naturalized in certain localities of the south of Europe.[2001] It cannot be said to exist in a really wild state, but botanists are agreed in regarding it as a modification of the poppy called _Papaver setigerum_, which is wild on the shores of the Mediterranean, notably in Spain, Algeria, Corsica, Sicily, Greece, and the island of Cyprus. It has not been met with in Eastern Asia,[2002] consequently this is really the original of the cultivated form. Its cultivation must have begun in Europe or in the north of Africa. In support of this theory we find that the Swiss lake-dwellers of the stone age cultivated a poppy which is nearer to _P. setigerum_ than to _P. somniferum_. Heer[2003] has not been able to find any of the leaves, but the capsule is surmounted by eight stigmas, as in _P. setigerum_, and not by ten or twelve, as in the cultivated poppy. This latter form, unknown in nature, seems therefore to have been developed within historic times. _P. setigerum_ is still cultivated in the north of France, together with _P. somniferum_, for the sake of its oil.[2004]

The ancient Greeks were well acquainted with the cultivated poppy. Homer, Theophrastus, and Dioscorides mention it. They were aware of the somniferous properties of the sap, and Dioscorides[2005] mentions the variety with white seeds. The Romans cultivated the poppy before the republic, as we see by the anecdote of Tarquin and the poppy-heads. They mixed its seeds with their flour in making bread.

The Egyptians of Pliny’s time[2006] used the juice of the poppy as a medicament, but we have no proof that this plant was cultivated in Egypt in more ancient times.[2007] In the Middle Ages[2008] and in our own day it is one of the principal objects of cultivation in that country, especially for the manufacture of opium. Hebrew writings do not mention the species. On the other hand, there are one or two Sanskrit names. Piddington gives _chosa_, and Adolphe Pictet _khaskhasa_, which recurs, he says, in the Persian _chashchâsh_, the Armenian _chashchâsh_,[2009] and in Arabic. Another Persian name is _kouknar_.[2010] These names, and others I could quote, very different from the _maikôn_ (Μήκων) of the Greeks, are an indication of an ancient cultivation in Europe and Western Asia. If the species was first cultivated in prehistoric time in Greece, as appears probable, it may have spread eastward before the Aryan invasion of India, but it is strange that there should be no proof of its extension into Palestine and Egypt before the Roman epoch. It is also possible that in Europe the variety called _Papaver setigerum_, employed by the Swiss lake-dwellers, was first cultivated, and that the variety now grown came from Asia Minor, where the species has been cultivated for at least three thousand years. This theory is supported by the existence of the Greek name _maikôn_, in Dorian _makon_, in several Slav languages, and in those of the peoples to the south of the Caucasus, under the form _mack_.[2011]

The cultivation of the poppy in India has been recently extended, because of the importation of opium into China; but the Chinese will soon cease to vex the English by buying this poison of them, for they are beginning eagerly to produce it themselves. The poppy is now grown over more than half of their territory.[2012] The species is never wild in the east of Asia, and even as regards China its cultivation is recent.[2013]

The name opium given to the drug extracted from the juice of the capsule is derived from the Greek. Dioscorides wrote _opos_ (Οπος). The Arabs converted it into _afiun_,[2014] and spread it eastwards even to China.

Flückiger and Hanbury[2015] give a detailed and interesting account of the extraction, trade, and use of opium in all countries, particularly in China. Yet I imagine my readers may like to read the following extracts from Dr. Bretschneider’s letters, dated from Pekin, Aug. 23, 1881, Jan. 28, and June 18, 1882. They give the most certain information which can be derived from accurately translated Chinese works.

“The author of the _Pent-sao-kang-mou_, who wrote in 1552 and 1578, gives some details concerning the _a-fou-yong_ (that is _afioun_, _opiun_), a foreign drug produced by a species of _ying-sou_ with red flowers in the country of Tien-fang (Arabia), and recently used as a medicament in China. In the time of the preceding dynasty there had been much talk of the _a-fou-yong_. The Chinese author gives some details relative to the extraction of opium in his native country, but he does not say that it is also produced in China, nor does he allude to the practice of smoking it. In the _Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands_, by Crawfurd, p. 312, I find the following passage: ‘The earliest account we have of the use of opium, not only from the Archipelago, but also from India and China, is by the faithful, intelligent Barbosa.[2016] He rates it among the articles brought by the Moorish and Gentile merchants of Western India, to exchange for the cargoes of Chinese junks.’”

“It is difficult to fix the exact date at which the Chinese began to smoke opium and to cultivate the poppy which produces it. As I have said, there is much confusion on this head, and not only European authors, but also the modern Chinese, apply the name _ying-sou_ to _P. somniferum_ as well as to _P. rhæas_. _P. somniferum_ is now extensively cultivated in all the provinces of the Chinese empire, and also in Mantchuria and Mongolia. Williamson (_Journeys in North China, Mantchuria, Mongolia_, 1868, ii. p. 55) saw it cultivated everywhere in Mantchuria. He was told that the cultivation of the poppy was twice as profitable as that of cereals. Potanin, a Russian traveller, who visited Northern Mongolia in 1876, saw immense plantations of the poppy in the valley of Kiran (between lat. 47° and 48°), This alarms the Chinese government, and still more the English, who dread the competition of native opium.”

“You are probably aware that opium is eaten, not smoked, in India and Persia. The practice of smoking this drug appears to be a Chinese invention, and modern. Nothing proves that the Chinese smoked opium before the middle of the last century. The Jesuit missionaries to China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries do not mention it; Father d’Incarville alone says in 1750 that the sale of opium is forbidden because it was used by suicides. Two edicts forbidding the smoking of opium date from before 1730, and another in 1796 speaks of the progress made by the vice in question. Don Sinibaldo di Mas, who in 1858 published a very good book on China, where he had lived many years as Spanish ambassador, says that the Chinese took the practice from the people of Assam, where the custom had long existed.”