Origin of Cultivated Plants / The International Scientific Series Volume XLVIII

THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES. VOLUME XLVIII
BY ALPHONSE DE CANDOLLE, FOREIGN ASSOCIATE OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE; FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETIES OF LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN; OF THE ACADEMIES OF ST. PETERSBURG, STOCKHOLM, BERLIN, MUNICH, BRUSSELS, COPENHAGEN, AMSTERDAM, ROME, TURIN, MADRID, BOSTON, ETC.
NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1908.

The knowledge of the origin of cultivated plants is interesting to agriculturists, to botanists, and even to historians and philosophers concerned with the dawnings of civilization.
I went into this question of origin in a chapter in my work on geographical botany; but the book has become scarce, and, moreover, since 1855 important facts have been discovered by travellers, botanists, and archæologists. Instead of publishing a second edition, I have drawn up an entirely new and more extended work, which treats of the origin of almost double the number of species belonging to the tropics and the temperate zones. It includes almost all plants which are cultivated, either on a large scale for economic purposes, or in orchards and kitchen gardens.
I have always aimed at discovering the condition and the habitat of each species before it was cultivated. It was needful to this end to distinguish from among innumerable varieties that which should be regarded as the most ancient, and to find out from what quarter of the globe it came. The problem is more difficult than it appears at first sight. In the last century and up to the middle of the present authors made little account of it, and the most able have contributed to the propagation of erroneous ideas. I believe that three out of four of Linnæus’ indications of the original home of cultivated plants are incomplete or incorrect. His statements have since been repeated, and in spite of what modern writers have proved touching several species, they are still repeated in periodicals and popular works. It is time that mistakes, which date in some cases from the Greeks and Romans, should be corrected. The actual condition of science allows of such correction, provided we rely upon evidence of varied character, of which some portion is quite recent, and even unpublished; and this evidence should be sifted as we sift evidence in historical research. It is one of the rare cases in which a science founded on observation should make use of testimonial proof. It will be seen that this method leads to satisfactory results, since I have been able to determine the origin of almost all the species, sometimes with absolute certainty, and sometimes with a high degree of probability.