ABSTRACT
Botanists have generally neglected cultivated varieties, as beneath their notice. In several cases the wild prototype is unknown or doubtfully known. In other cases it is hardly possible to distinguish between escaped seedlings and truly wild plants, so that there is no safe standard of comparison by which to judge of any supposed amount of change. The cereals cultivated in Europe consist of four genera wheat, rye, barley, and oats. From innumerable experiments made through dire necessity by the savages of every land, with the results handed down by tradition, the nutritious, stimulating, and medicinal properties of the most unpromising plants were probably first discovered. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps has argued that, if cereal plants have been greatly modified by cultivation, the weeds which habitually grow mingled with them would have been equally modified. The horticulturists who raise seed-peas are thus enabled to plant distinct varieties close together without any bad consequences.
