flattened, and silky at the top. Such were the
seeds sown by M. Fabre in his garden: the seeds
annually saved being sown year after year, for
twelve consecutive seasons. In the first year
they produced plants three or four times as high
as the original plant. The awns of the valves
were still further diminished, and had a greater
resemblance to wheat; the spikelets of the ears
were more numerous, and most of them were
sterile, and the fertile spikelets yielded only one
or two seeds. These seeds, however, in the
next year, produced more perfect plants; the
spikelets in the cars were more numerous than
before, and they mostly furnished a couple of
grains. The ears, when ripe, separated less early
from the axis than the parent plant, and the
grain was more farinaceous. A third year
yielded still higher products. The fourth
year presented no notable change. In the fifth
year, the stem grew to a length of three feet,
and the grains were large enough when ripe to
burst open the valves of the flower. In the
sixth year, none of the spikelets had less than
two, and some had three grains; the plants
had all the appearances of a true wheat
(Triticum), and these they retained under cultivation
in an open field for four successive years,
yielding a crop similar to the corn of the
country.

These statements having obtained the corroborating
testimony of Professor Dunal, of Montpellier,
gave rise to much discussion; and, while
some botanists looked upon them as solving the
problem of the origin ot our cultivated wheats,
others saw in them only an illustration of certain
laws of crossing or hybridation. M. Godron,
of Nancy, whose observations led him to
believe that the " triticoides" was a cross, fertilised
an ear of the wild " Ægilops ovata" with
the pollen of common wheat. The seed of this
specimen, when sown in the following year, produced
— not the " ovata," but the " triticoides."
By fertilising with a beardless wheat, he obtained
a short-awned " triticoides," and with a
long-bearded wheat a long-awncd cross. This
was thought to be the true solution of the
question. The primitive grass did not develop
into corn, but the corn was the result of a cross
between the grass and the wheat.

The geographical distribution of the grains is
determined not by climate only, but depends on
the civilisation, industry, and traffic, of the
people, as well as on historical events. Within
the northern polar circle, agriculture is found
only in a few places. In Siberia, grain reaches,
at the utmost, only to sixty degrees; in the eastern
parts, scarcely above fifty-five degrees; and
in Kamtschatka there is no agriculture, even in
the most southern parts, at fifty-one degrees.
The polar limit of agriculture on the north-west
coast of America, appears to be somewhat
higher, for in the more southern Russian possessions,
from fifty-seven to fifty-two degrees,
barley and rye come to maturity; on the east
coast of America, it is scarcely above fifty to
fifty-two degrees. Only in Europe, namely, in
Lapland, does the polar limit reach the unusually
high latitude of seventy degrees. Beyond this,
dried fish, and here and there potatoes, supply
the place of grain.

The grains which extend furthest to the north
in Europe, are barley and oats. These, which in
the milder climates are not used for bread, afford
to the inhabitants of the northern parts of Norway
and Sweden, and the inhabitants of a part of
Siberia and Scotland, their principal food. Rye
is the next and prevailing grain in a great part
of the northern temperate zone, namely, in the
south of Sweden and Norway, Denmark, and in
all the countries bordering on the Baltic, the
north of Germany, and part of Siberia. In the
latter, another very nutritious grain, buckwheat,
is very frequently cultivated. In the zone
where rye prevails, wheat is generally to be
found: barley being then chiefly cultivated for
the manufacture of beer, and oats supplying
food for horses.

There follows a zone in Europe and Western
Asia, where rye disappears, and wheat almost
exclusively furnishes bread. The middle, or
the south of France, England, part of Scotland,
a part of Germany, Hungary, the Crimea
and Caucasus, as also the parts of middle Asia
where agriculture is followed, belong to this
zone. Here the vine is also found; wine supplanting
the use of beer, barley is consequently
less grown.

Next, comes a district where wheat still
abounds, but no longer exclusively furnishes
bread: rice and maize becoming frequent. To
this zone belong Portugal, Spain, the part of
France on the Mediterranean, Italy and Greece;
further east, Persia, Northern India, Arabia,
Egypt, Nubia, Barbary, and the Canary Islands.
In these latter countries, however, towards the
south, the culture of maize or rice is always
greater; and, in some of them, several kinds of
Sorghum (Doura) and pea (Poa Abyssinica)
come to be added. In both these regions of
wheat, rye only occurs at a considerable elevation;
oats are more rare, and at last entirely
disappear; barley alone affording food for horses
and mules.

In the eastern parts of the temperate zone of
the Old Continent, in China and Japan, our
northern kinds of grain are very infrequent, and
rice is found to predominate. The cause of this
difference between the east and the west of the
Old Continent appears to be in the manners
and peculiarities of the people. In North America,
wheat and rye grow as in Europe, but more
sparingly. Maize is grown more in the Western
than in the Old Continent, and rice predominates
in the southern provinces of the United
States.

In the torrid zone, maize predominates in
America, rice in Asia, and both these grains in
nearly equal quantity in Africa. The cause of
this distribution is doubtless an historical one,
for Asia is the native country of rice, and America
of maize. In some situations, especially in
the neighbourhood of the tropics, wheat is also
met with, but always subordinate to these other
kinds of grain. Besides rice and maize, there