Origin of Cultivated Plants

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. Heer2003 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 Dioscorides2005 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 time2006 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 Ages2008 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 chashchash,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 Hanbury2015 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.”

So bad a habit, like the use of tobacco or absinth, is sure to spread. It is becoming gradually introduced into the countries which have frequent relations with China. It is to be hoped that it will not attack so large a proportion of the peoples of other countries as in Amoy, where the proportion of opium-smokers are as fifteen to twenty of the adult population.2017

Arnotto, or Anatto—Bisca orellana, Linnæus.

The dye, called rocou in French, arnotto in English, is extracted from the pulp which encases the seed. The inhabitants of the West India Islands, of the Isthmus of Darien, and of Brazil, used it at the time of the discovery of America to stain their bodies red, and the Mexicans in painting.2018 The arnotto, a small tree of the order Bixaceæ, grows wild in the West Indies,2019 and over a great part of the continent of America between the tropics. Herbaria and floras abound in indications of locality, but do not generally specify whether the species is cultivated, wild, or naturalized. I note, however, that it is said to be indigenous by Seemann on the north-west coast of Mexico and Panama, by Triana in New Granada, by Meyer in Dutch Guiana, and by Piso and Claussen in Brazil.2020 With such a vast area, it is not surprising that the species has many names in American languages; that of the Brazilians, urucu, is the origin of rocou.

It was not very necessary to plant this tree in order to obtain its product; nevertheless Piso relates that the Brazilians, in the sixteenth century, were not content with the wild plant, and in Jamaica, in the seventeenth century, the plantations of Bixa were common. It was one of the first species transported from America to the south of Asia and to Africa. It has become so entirely naturalized, that Roxburgh2021 believed it to be indigenous in India.

Cotton—Gossypium herbaceum, Linnæus.

When, in 1855, I sought the origin of the cultivated cottons,2022 there was still great uncertainty as to the distinction of the species. Since then two excellent works have appeared in Italy, upon which we can rely; one by Parlatore,2023 formerly director of the botanical gardens at Florence, the other by Todaro,2024 of Palermo. These two works are illustrated with magnificent coloured plates. Nothing better can be desired for the cultivated cottons. On the other hand, our knowledge of the true species, I mean of those which exist naturally in a wild state, has not increased as much as it might. However, the definition of species seems fairly accurate in the works of Dr. Masters,2025 whom I shall therefore follow. This author agrees with Parlatore in admitting seven well-known species and two doubtful, while Todaro counts fifty-four, of which only two are doubtful, reckoning as species forms with some distinguishing character, but which originated and are preserved by cultivation.

The common names of the cottons give no assistance; they are even calculated to lead us completely astray as to the origin of the species. A cotton called Siamese comes from America; another is called Brazilian or Ava cotton, according to the fancy or the error of cultivators.

We will first consider Gossypium herbaceum, an ancient species in Asiatic plantations, and now the commonest in Europe and in the United States. In the hot countries whence it came, its stem lasts several years, but out of the tropics it becomes annual from the effect of the winter’s cold. The flower is generally yellow, with a red centre; the cotton yellow or white, according to the variety. Parlatore examined in herbaria several wild specimens, and cultivated others derived from wild plants of the Indian Peninsula. He also admits it to be indigenous in Burmah and in the Indian Archipelago, from the specimens of collectors, who have not perhaps been sufficiently careful to verify its wild character.

Masters regards as undoubtedly wild in Sindh a form which he calls Gossypium Stocksii, which he says is probably the wild condition of Gossypium herbaceum, and of other cottons cultivated in India for a long time. Todaro, who is not given to uniting many forms in a single species, nevertheless admits the identity of this variety with the common G. herbaceum. The yellow colour of the cotton is then the natural condition of the species. The seed has not the short down which exists between the longer hairs in the cultivated G. herbaceum.

Cultivation has probably extended the area of the species beyond the limits of the primitive habitation. This is, I imagine, the case in the Sunda Islands and the Malay Peninsula, where certain individuals appear more or less wild. Kurz,2026 in his Burmese flora, mentions G. herbaceum, with yellow or white cotton, as cultivated and also as wild in desert places and waste ground.

The herbaceous cotton is called kapase in Bengali, kapas in Hindustani, which shows that the Sanskrit word karpassi undoubtedly refers to this species.2027 It was early cultivated in Bactriana, where the Greeks had noticed it at the time of the expedition of Alexander. Theophrastus speaks of it2028 in such a manner as to leave no doubt. The tree-cotton of the Isle of Tylos, in the Persian Gulf, of which he makes mention further on,2029 was probably also G. herbaceum; for Tylos is not far from India, and in such a hot climate the herbaceous cotton becomes a shrub. The introduction of a cotton plant into China took place only in the ninth or tenth century of our era, which shows that probably the area of G. herbaceum was originally limited to the south and east of India. The knowledge and perhaps the cultivation of the Asiatic cotton was propagated in the Græco-Roman world after the expedition of Alexander, but before the first centuries of the Christian era.2030 If the byssos of the Greeks was the cotton plant, as most scholars think, it was cultivated at Elis, according to Pausanias and Pliny;2031 but Curtius and C. Ritter2032 consider the word byssos as a general term for threads, and that it was probably applied in this case to fine linen. It is evident that the cotton was never, or very rarely, cultivated by the ancients. It is so useful that it would have become common if it had been introduced into a single locality – in Greece, for instance. It was afterwards propagated on the shores of the Mediterranean by the Arabs, as we see from the name qutn or kutn,2033 which has passed into the modern languages of the south of Europe as cotone, coton, algodon. Eben el Awan, of Seville, who lived in the twelfth century, describes its cultivation as it was practised in his time in Sicily, Spain, and the East.2034

Gossypium herbaceum is the species most cultivated in the United States.2035 It was probably introduced there from Europe. It was a new cultivation a hundred years ago, for a bale of North American cotton was confiscated at Liverpool in 1774, on the plea that the cotton-plant did not grow there.2036 The silky cotton (sea island) is another species, American, of which I shall presently speak.

Tree-Cotton—Gossypium arboreum, Linnæus.

This species is taller and of longer duration than the herbaceous cotton; the lobes of the leaf are narrower, the bracts less divided or entire. The flower is usually pink, with a red centre. The cotton is always white.

According to Anglo-Indian botanists, this is not, as it was supposed, an Indian species, and is even rarely cultivated in India. It is a native of tropical Africa. It has been seen wild in Upper Guinea, in Abyssinia, Sennaar, and Upper Egypt.2037 So great a number of collectors have brought it from these countries, that there is no room for doubt; but cultivation has so diffused and mixed this species with others that it has been described under several names in works on Southern Asia.

Parlatore attributed to G. arboreum some Asiatic specimens of G. herbaceum, and a plant but little known which Forskal found in Arabia. He suspected from this that the ancients had known G. arboreum as well as G. herbaceum. Now that the two species are better distinguished, and that the origin of both is known, this does not seem probable. They knew the herbaceous cotton through India and Persia, while the tree-cotton can only have come to them through Egypt. Parlatore himself has given a most interesting proof of this. Until his work appeared in 1866, it was not certain to what species belonged some seeds of the cotton plant which Rosellini found in a vase among the monuments of ancient Thebes.2038 These seeds are in the Florence museum. Parlatore examined them carefully, and declares them to belong to Gossypium arboreum.2039 Rosellini is certain he was not imposed upon, as he was the first to open both the tomb and the vase. No archæologist has since seen or read signs of the cotton plant in the ancient times of Egyptian civilization. How is it that a plant so striking, remarkable for its flowers and seed, was not described nor preserved habitually in the tombs if it were cultivated? How is it that Herodotus, Dioscorides, and Theophrastus made no mention of it when writing of Egypt? The cloths in which all the mummies are wrapt, and which were formerly supposed to be cotton, are always linen according to Thompson and many other observers who are familiar with the use of the microscope. Hence I conclude that if the seeds found by Rosellini were really ancient they were a rarity, an exception to the common custom, perhaps the product of a tree cultivated in a garden, or perhaps they came from Upper Egypt, a country where we know the tree-cotton to be wild. Pliny2040 does not say that cotton was cultivated in Lower Egypt; but here is a translation of his very remarkable passage, which is often quoted. “The upper part of Egypt, towards Arabia, produces a shrub which some call gossipion and others xylon, whence the name xylina given to the threads obtained from it. It is low-growing, and bears a fruit like that of the bearded nut, and from the interior of this is taken a wool for weaving. None is comparable to this in softness and whiteness.” Pliny adds, “The cloth made from it is used by preference for the dress of the Egyptian priests.” Perhaps the cotton destined to this purpose was sent from Upper Egypt, or perhaps the author, who had not seen the fabrication, and did not possess a microscope, was mistaken in the nature of the sacerdotal raiment, as were our contemporaries who handled the grave-cloths of hundreds of mummies before suspecting that they were not cotton. Among the Jews, the priestly robes were commanded to be of linen, and it is not likely that their custom was different to that of the Egyptians.

Pollux,2041 born in Egypt a century later than Pliny, expresses himself clearly about the cotton plant, of which the thread was used by his countrymen; but he does not say whence the shrub came, and we cannot tell whether it was Gossypium arboreum or G. herbaceum. It does not even appear whether the plant was cultivated in Lower Egypt, or if the cotton came from the more southern region. In spite of these doubts, it may be suspected that a cotton plant, probably that of Upper Egypt, had recently been introduced into the Delta. The species which Prosper Alpin had seen cultivated in Egypt in the sixteenth century was the tree-cotton. The Arabs, and afterwards Europeans, preferred and transported into different countries the herbaceous cotton rather than the tree-cotton, which yields a poorer product and requires more heat.