Chapter 3 ON THE ORIGIN OF SORTS OF ROOTS.

As crop plants are derived from wild ones, as the effect of cultivation, it follows as a matter of course that these will be varied, both in form and constitution, according to the circumstances under which they have been produced. Thus we may expect that any attempts to ennoble a wild root in different countries would not, even if successful, be sure to bring about the same results. Much depends even upon the individual root with which our trial may be started, and more upon the judgment employed in selecting the stock from which the experiments are to be continued.

That position and soil may make a great difference may be inferred from the fact that the attempts to improve the wild parsnip and carrot have met with varied success. De Candolle is reported to have tried to improve the carrot with success, whilst with the parsnip he utterly failed; whilst Professor Lindley, in Morton's "Cyclop?dia of Agriculture," tells us that M. Ponsard has ascertained that "the wild parsnip becomes improved immediately when cultivated, and that experiments in improving its quality promise well:" how well, indeed, may be seen from the foregoing chapter. But still, we utterly failed with the wild carrot. Having collected seeds of the Daucus Carota (the common wild carrot) from some fine specimens growing on the road-side between Cirencester and Cheltenham, they were subjected to experiment at the same time as the parsnip, but with little, if any, favourable result. Upon this plant Professor Lindley observes as follows:-

That the hard-rooted wild carrot is really the parent of our cultivated varieties, remarkable as they are for the succulence and tenderness of their roots, has been experimentally proved by M. Vilmorin, who succeeded in obtaining by cultivation perfectly tender, eatable roots, from seeds saved from plants only three or four generations off the wild species.

Still, a modern French naturalist of great experience, M. Decaisne, tells us that he has tried to ennoble the wild carrot, and has not succeeded; and from this he draws the conclusion that our cultivated forms were created specially for the use of man. As we should suppose that very few botanists agree to this theory, we shall let the facts we have already brought forward stand in maintenance of its opposite, namely, that cultivated forms are derived from wild species often apparently very different; but at the same time it may be well to state, that in all probability some of the discrepancies of experimenters may have arisen from some confusion in the species operated upon.

In 1860 we gathered some seed of the Daucus maritima (sea-side carrot) at Bognor, which, on being sown in a prepared plot the following spring, certainly resulted in fairly succulent roots, which on being cooked were pronounced by our party of four to be excellent. While on this subject, it may be mentioned as not a little remarkable, that so many of our garden esculents should be derived from sea-side plants. Thus, probably carrot, but certainly celery, sea-kale, asparagus, and cabbage. This would seem to point to the fact that cultivation requires a complete change of the circumstances necessary to maintain a wild condition; and hence cultivated plants can only be kept up by the labours of a cultivator.

Now, as regards the sea-side carrot, we are after all inclined to the belief that it is the parent of the cultivated varieties, whilst, on the other hand, we view the Daucus Carota (the wild inland carrot) as a probable descendant from the cultivated or garden stock; and if this be so, the Daucus maritima is the original species from which both the wild and cultivated races have descended. Bentham, indeed, carries this view a little further, the following remarks tending to throw doubts upon the carrot in any form as being a true native. Under the heading of Daucus Carota he says:-

Probably an original native of the sea-coasts of modern Europe, but of very ancient cultivation, and sows itself most readily, soon degenerating to the wild form, with a slender root, and now most abundant in fields, pastures, waste places, &c., throughout Europe and Russian Asia; common in Britain, especially near the sea. Flowers the whole summer and autumn. A decidedly maritime variety, with the leaves somewhat fleshy, with shorter segments, more or less thickened peduncles, more spreading umbels, and more flattened prickles to the fruits, is often considered as a distinct species.

Seeing then that crop plants are derivatives from a wild stock, we can readily understand how the varying circumstances attendant upon the development of the former should tend to the production of varieties, and this merely as the result of the treatment of the fairly derived legitimate seed. If, again, we take these variations for the purpose of obtaining hybrids, we need not wonder at the infinite variety of sorts which can be brought about, but rather that any sort could be maintained in that trueness of character or in that state of permanency which we sometimes find to be the case.

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