STORY OF THE CROPS
Bloated and unhealthy plants--Oats of the Borderers, Norsemen,
and Danes--Wheat as a wild plant--Barley--Rye--Where was
the very first harvest?--Vine in the Caucasus--Indians
sowing corn--Early weeds--Where did weeds live before
cultivation?--Armies of weeds--Their cunning and
ingenuity--Gardeners' feats--The Ideal Bean--Diseased
pineapples--Raising beetroot and carrot--Story of the travels of
Sugar-cane--Indian Cupid--Beetroot and Napoleon.
It is difficult to understand the amount of labour and toil that has
been spent on farmlands and pastures, if one only considers England.
It is often impossible to discover one square mile still covered by
the natural wild plants. It is all under corn or arable, or rich
artificial meadowland.
But from a Scotch hillside, as one looks down at the fertile valley
below, one can see _first_ where the mosaic of hedges and dykes
stops, _then_ where, after a narrow stretch of rough grass pasture,
the cultivation ends; finally, where, ridge after ridge, rolling,
heathery moorland, without enclosures and without any sign of man's
handiwork, rises up to the highest peaks.
This fills one with a respect and reverence towards our forbears,
which is increased by a study of corn, turnips, and potatoes.
Every one of these plants is a thoroughly unnatural, artificially
bloated, and overfed sort of creature. Its constitution, as is usual
with those who habitually overeat themselves, is delicate and unsound.
No cultivated plant could exist for more than a season if man did not
look after it and protect it from its rivals and weeds. Moreover,
they are a curiously assorted lot.
Wheat probably came from Asia Minor, Swedes from Scandinavia,
Mangelwurzel from the Mediterranean, and Potatoes from Chile. Turnips
and Carrots are indeed native Britishers, though the original wild
carrot or turnip would never be recognized as such by any ordinary
person.
The history of every one of them is interesting. The Oat is the
true Teutonic and Scandinavian grain, which has more "fibre" than
any other cereal. There is an interesting passage in Froissart's
_Chronicles_ describing the commissariat of those hardy Scotch
borderers who raided and ruined the northern English counties
whenever they felt inclined to do so.[118] They lived for the most
part on the cattle of their enemies, but each man carried a small
sack of oatmeal and a griddle, or iron plate, on which to make
oatcake. So that each man supported himself. His little rough pony
also was quite able to look after itself.
[118] Or whenever they could do so successfully. (_Publisher's
note._)
That hardy plant, the Oat (_Avena sativa_) can be cultivated as far
north as 69.50° N. lat. It is a native of Siberia and Western Europe.
It was oatmeal that supported the Norsemen who conquered Normandy
and England, and who even dominated the Mediterranean. The Swedes
of Gustavus Adolphus and the Danes of Canute also lived mainly upon
oatmeal and porridge. It is true that in England oats are abandoned
to the horses, but those horses are the best in the world. There
can, of course, be no question as to whether the Scotch or English
are the best!
The history of Wheat is a very complicated one; there are a great
number of varieties and sub-species, all closely allied to our
ordinary wheat, and difficult to distinguish from it. One variety
occurs as a wild plant from Mesopotamia, near Ararat, over Servia,
the Crimea, and as far as Thessaly, where entire hills are covered
by it. This grain seems to have been cultivated at Troy, for Dr.
Schliemann has found it at Hissarlik. It was, however, in cultivation
long before the days of Achilles; it was grown by the Stone Age
people, who lived in the lake dwellings of Switzerland. Another kind,
"spelt" wheat, seems to have been the mainstay in ancient Egypt, in
Greece, and all through the Roman Empire. It is now very rare, though
it is still grown in Spain and in other countries where the soil is
poor.
Grains of the true Wheat have been discovered in the Pyramids of
Egypt, so that it also is very ancient. To-day Wheat extends to
Norway (69° N. lat.), and may be grown up to 4400 feet on the
Alps.[119] India, United States, Russia, the Argentine, Chile,
Australia, and many other countries, produce great crops of this
useful and nourishing food. Its fibre is 3 per cent., albuminous
matter 11-1/2 per cent., and carbo-hydrates 66·5 per cent. Oat has
10 per cent. fibre, 11-1/2 per cent. albuminous, and 57 per cent.
carbo-hydrates.
[119] Hackel, _True Grasses_.
One guess as to the origin of Wheat is that the first-named
(Mesopotamian sort) is the original wild plant. By cultivation in the
rich alluvial valleys of Mesopotamia and Egypt, improved kinds were
formed. These have eventually replaced both "spelt" wheat and the
wild race, but could only do so when richly-cultivated fields were
ready for them. On poor soil and with bad cultivation, "spelt" is
said to be even now the most profitable crop.
Wild Barley grows in Arabia and from Asia Minor to Baluchistan. It is
very important in the colder regions of Northern Europe, in Tibet,
and in China, but with us "John Barleycorn" is chiefly used for
brewing.
Rye also comes from Asia Minor. It was not apparently known in Europe
until the Bronze period, but is now "the chief cereal of the German
and Slavonic nations." The black rye-bread is familiar to all who
have travelled on the Continent. The straw is good fodder, and is
used for making hats and for paper.[120]
[120] Hackel, _True Grasses_.
A very interesting point on which, however, it is quite impossible
to come to a definite decision, may be noticed here. We will suppose
what is quite as likely as any other theory, viz. that man as a
gardening creature first settled somewhere in the Euphrates or
Caucasian valleys.
What wild plants, then, would have been available for his experiments?
This particular region is an interesting and remarkable one. Most of
our common British plants occur along the shore of the Black Sea to
the Caucasus (apple, pear, nut, turnip, cabbage, carrot, and others,
are all probably to be found there). On the Babylonian side of the
mountains, there is a warm sub-tropical climate in which almost every
useful plant can be grown. The desert also contains a few other
valuable plants.
Near Ararat, Noah might have found rye, wheat, and barley growing
wild. The Wild Vine also grows on the south of the Caucasus. "It
grows there with the luxuriant wildness of a tropical creeper,
clinging to tall trees and producing abundant fruit without
pruning or cultivation."[121] In that favoured district, the olive
and the fig, the melon and cucumber, onions, garlic, and shallots,
and other common garden and medicinal plants, can be found. Not far
away is the native country of the camel, the ass, the horse, and most
other domestic animals.
[121] De Candolle, _Origin of Cultivated Plants_.
[Illustration: _Stereo Copyright, Underwood & Underwood_
_London & New York_
RICEFIELDS IN THE CEYLON HILLS
The buffaloes are puddling up the soil before the seed is
planted.]
Were these hillsides of Ararat or thereabouts, the first place where
man sowed and reaped a harvest?
At any rate, in those flat, fertile, alluvial plains of the
Euphrates, and also in Egypt, the first great cities arose.
But even in the later Stone Age, which may have been about 58,000
B.C., some of these Caucasian plants seem to have been in cultivation
in Switzerland. Probably every subsequent invasion, first that of
races with bronze weapons, and then of others in the Iron Age,
brought with it new cultivated plants.
The Oat seems to be an exception to the rule, for, so far as one can
gather, it was not a native of Asia Minor.
The first harvest was, however, in all probability, a very casual and
occasional kind of thing.
Mason (_Origin of Inventions_, page 192) has described such a kind
of cultivation which was in existence amongst the American Indians
quite recently. "A company of Cocopa or Mohave or Pima women set
forth to a rich and favoured spot on the side of a cañon or rocky
steep. They are guarded by a sufficient number of men from capture
or molestation. Each woman has a little bag of gourd seed, and when
the company reach their destination she proceeds to plant the seeds
one by one in a rich cranny or crevice where the roots may have
opportunity to hold, the sun may shine in, and the vines with their
fruit may swing down as from a trellis. The planters then go home
and take no further notice of their vines until they return in the
autumn to gather the gourds" (E. Palmer).
There is an interesting point about the cultivation of those early
savage peoples who built up for themselves unhealthy but elaborate
wooden dwellings in the Swiss lakes, in order to escape wild beasts
and human beings who were even more dangerous and ferocious than they.
Weeds occurred in those cornfields, cultivated by stone implements,
some 60,000 years ago.
The seed of an Italian weed had been introduced with their corn, and
was discovered in Switzerland!
Weeds are an extremely interesting group. A proverb about the
hardiness and multiplication of weeds can be discovered in almost
every language. "Ill weeds grow apace," _Unkraut verbessert nicht_,
and so on. They are very common. In fact weeds, wayside, and
freshwater plants, have by far the widest distribution of all. There
are twenty-five species which can be found over at least half the
entire land surface of the earth, and more than a hundred occupy a
third of it.[122]
[122] Drude, _Handbuch Pflanzengeographie_, p. 107.
Moreover, many of our common weeds existed in Britain when the
glaciers and ice melted away, and there were as yet no people able to
cultivate the ground.
The Creeping Buttercup, Chickweed, Mint, Persicaria, Dock, and
Sheep's Sorrel had already colonized the country, before the Great
Ice Age came upon them, and at least fourteen weeds were here when
the first corn-raising savages landed in Britain.[123]
[123] Reid, _Origin of the British Flora_.
At first sight it is difficult to understand where and how they
lived. One discovers a very few, however, if one botanizes very
carefully along the seashore, or on river banks where landslips have
occurred, and in other such places where bare ground exists which is
not the result of cultivation.
There these weeds fulfil a very important and useful purpose. The
"red smear" of a landslip is soon tinted green with Coltsfoot,
Chickweed and the like, and the bare earth, which was useless and
supported no green covering, is very soon made once more a part
of the earth's fruitful field. In such places the weeds are soon
overcome and suppressed by the regular woods, grass, or thicket of
the district.
It is far otherwise in arable land, where man desires to keep the
ground bare in order to give his own domestic plants the best part of
the soil.
Let us look for a little at what actually happens in an ordinary
cornfield. It is not merely one generation of weeds, but whole
armies, that the farmer has to contend with.
When the young corn is growing up (1) the bright yellow Charlock
grows much more rapidly, and the whole cornfield is golden with it.
The Charlock grows to some eighteen inches high, flowers, and sets
its seed before it is suppressed by the growth of the cornstalks,
which, of course, may be three or four feet or more in height.
(2) Another series of weeds, such as Spurrey, are growing in the
shelter of the tall stalks, and their flowers are ripened and their
seed scattered long before the corn is cut. (3) Another series, such
as Polygonums, etc., become ripe and are about the length of the
corn, so that when it is cut and thrashed the seed of the Polygonum
accompanies the grain and is probably sown with it. (4) Then there
are such weeds as the False Oat grass, etc., which are taller than
the Oat, and whose seeds are blown off and scattered all over the
field before the harvest. One would think that those exhausted the
series, but far from it: the farmer cuts and carries the crop, and
for two or three days the ground is almost bare, but if you revisit
the field a week afterwards you can no longer see the ground. The
cut-off yellow stalks of the corn are set off by a dark continuous
green carpet of flourishing weeds. This last, (5) the "waiting
division" of the weeds, remain quietly until the corn is removed and
then get through their flowering and seeding before the field is
ploughed up or covered by grass.
Now if one thinks for a little over the cunning and ingenuity of
these proceedings, it is obvious that each single weed has somehow
learnt how to develop exactly at the right time. Those especially
which are intended (by themselves) to form part of the seed mixtures
must flower exactly at the same time as the corn. As a matter of
fact, most seed mixtures are often full of weeds. In a single pound
of clover seed, no less than 14,400 foreign seeds, including those of
forty-four different weeds, have been discovered.[124]
[124] _Report of the Botanical Department N.J. Agricultural
Experiment Station_, 1891.
Others scattered on the ground will probably be buried and remain
five to seven years below the surface, yet they are ready to come up
flourishing as soon as they get a chance.
How has this been brought about? It is only since about 1780 to 1820
that our present system of farming has prevailed. In these 125 years,
these weeds have found out exactly how to establish themselves.
The explanation is probably a very simple one. Every weed which did
not bloom and seed exactly at the right time was killed and left no
seed. This encouraged the others, who have gradually brought about
the neat little arrangements above described. A process of selection
has been at work. Those that would not modify their arrangements to
suit new methods of farming have been suppressed.
But it is in some of the cultivated plants themselves that one sees
the most extraordinary results of selection.
The Wild Cabbage is still to be found on sea-cliffs on the
south-western coast of England, and the Wild Turnip occasionally
occurs in fields. There is nothing particularly interesting or
attractive about either of them.
Yet from the one has been produced cabbage, cauliflower, seakale,
brussels sprouts, broccoli, and kohlrabi; and the other has given the
endless varieties of turnips. For the most part these extraordinary
changes have been brought about in a perfectly straightforward way,
by just choosing the biggest and finest sorts for seed.
Some of the feats performed by gardeners in this way are almost
incredible. A United States seedsman evolved the idea of a perfect
bean from his inner consciousness. It had a particular shape which he
described to a noted grower of beans. Two years later his ideal bean
was produced!
The growers of pineapples used to have a great deal of difficulty
on account of the pineapple cuttings becoming unhealthy. Sometimes
63 per cent. were more or less diseased. Then certain growers began
to carefully select disease-proof pineapples, and finally reduced
the percentage of diseased cuttings to four per cent. Another French
observer (M. Roujon) by continually selecting the smallest seeds, was
able to obtain corn only eight inches high.
But by far the most interesting and important researches have
been those dealing with roots and tubers. Several people have, in
fact, done in a few years what it took primitive man centuries to
accomplish.
Thus, in 1890, E. v. Proskowetz obtained some seeds of the wild
Sea-beetroot which is found on the south coast of France. By very
careful selection he was able in the year 1894 to get good beetroots
quite like the ordinary cultivated ones. These were biennials
(not annuals like the wild plant), and had a large percentage of
sugar--16·99 per cent. This was by selection in good and fertile
soil.[125] Vilmorin also obtained quite good carrots in the fourth
generation by cultivating the wild form in rich and good soil, and
selecting the best.
[125] Perceval, _Agricultural Botany_.
In fact there are in natural wild plants great differences between
individuals, and when such plants are cultivated in good soil, where
they have far more to eat than they require, the result is that they
produce extraordinary and monstrous types.
These types are, however, more or less delicate, and are weak in
constitution and easily killed. To prevent such variations those who
wish to keep a race of seed pure are careful to keep it growing on
poor land.
In 1596 the Hyacinth (_Hyacinthus orientalis_) was introduced from
the Levant. In 1597 there were four varieties, and in 1629 eight
kinds were known, but in 1768 two thousand forms of hyacinth were
named and described.
Besides selection, the method of hybridizing or crossing is often
used in order to obtain new or valuable strains. Generally both
hybridizing and crossing are employed. This method has long been
practised. Bradley, in 1717, writes as follows: "A curious person may
by this knowledge produce much rare kinds of plants as have not yet
been heard of"; and, in fact, peaches, potatoes, plums, strawberries,
and savoys have all been greatly improved by hybridizing and
selection.[126] By crossing certain kinds of corn, such as the
Chinese Oat and the wild European Oat, varieties have been produced
by Messrs. Garton which at the Highland and Agricultural Society's
trials produced 84, 87, and 99 bushels per acre, as compared with 58
bushels yielded by the ordinary Scotch Oat.[127] With potatoes also
astonishing results have been got.
[126] Masters, _Nature_, July, 1899.
[127] _Journal Farmers' Club_, February, 1900.
[Illustration: _Queensland Government Photo_
SUGAR CANE IN QUEENSLAND
The cart is being loaded up to carry the canes to the factory,
where it will be crushed by the latest and most perfect
machinery.]
One single potato was sold for £50 not very long ago.
The Potato, like the Indian corn, tobacco, and a few other plants,
is an inhabitant of the New World. Of other cultivated plants the
native country is not known. No one knows where, for instance,
Sugar-cane was first cultivated, but it has nine Sanskrit names, one
of which, _khand_, is, or has probably at one time been familiar to
us as sugar-candy. It was well-known when the Institutes of Manu were
written, but that may have been somewhere between 2000 B.C. and A.D.
20.
One of the Hindu Indian deities, Kámadeva, who corresponds to Cupid,
the God of Love, carries a bow made of sugar-cane, with a string
which is composed of bees.
"He bends the luscious cane and twists the string
With bees: how sweet! but ah! how keen their sting,
He with five flowerets tips the ruthless darts
Which through five senses pierce enraptured hearts."
From India it seems to have been carried by Alexander the Great
to Asia Minor, for it is mentioned by Herodotus. In the time of
the Crusades it was discovered in Syria, and the Venetians learned
something about it when the Crusaders returned to Europe. The
Spaniards introduced the Sugar-cane to the Canary Islands in 1470.
Then the Dutch took it to Brazil, and when they were expelled from
that country by the Portuguese they transferred their canes to the
West Indian Islands. Our English islands, Barbados (1643) and Jamaica
(1664), soon found the cultivation a very profitable undertaking.[128]
[128] For full details see Watts, _Economic Dictionary of
Products of India_; Muller, _Select Extra-tropical Plants_.
The variations in price of sugar became in process of time of a very
serious nature. In the year 1329 it is said that in Scotland a pound
of sugar was worth one ounce of standard silver. But from 1780 to
1800 the price fell to 9d. The East Indian sugar began to compete
with that from the West Indies about this time, but this was very
soon crushed out by imposing a duty of £37 per cwt.
The West Indies were then very flourishing, but even before this the
fatal word _beet-sugar_ had already been heard. It was nothing at
first but an interesting experiment by Professor Marcgraf in a German
laboratory, who had extracted a little cane-sugar from beetroot in
1747. But in 1801 the beet was already in cultivation. Napoleon saw
England's monopoly of the cane and judiciously encouraged the beet.
The result of his far-seeing policy only became manifest a few years
ago, for then the West Indian Islands, which we conquered and guarded
against Napoleon at such fearful expense of blood and treasure, were
almost worthless; Continental beet-sugar had ruined our colonial
planters and our home refineries. It is in fact a most curious and
interesting example of how a little judicious encouragement by a wise
and far-seeing Government may destroy the profits of victory in a
long, glorious, but yet ruinous war.