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Show .AGENCY OF MAN IN TtlE '(Ch. V. t already enumerated, as a . . to all the agen s '11 But in a dition tlle globe we have sh to . 'fti · plants over ' l'nstrumental m di usmg . ortant of all. He transports f the most 1mp . consider man-one 0 . h tables which he cultivates • regton t e vege . '11 with him, mto every . '1 t means of spreadmg ash d . the mvo un ary . for his wants, an lS 1 t him or even nox10us. 1. h are use ess o ' greater number w nc . f lf ted plants is of recent date, " When the introductlOn o . cu lhV~ rigin . but when it is of 'ffi lt . n tracmg t etr o ' there is no d1 cu Y 1 • t of the true country of the . . re often tgnoran . . . high antiqmt!, we a d No one contests the American origtn plants on which we fee . the origin, in the old world, of . r the potato, nor . b' of the matze o B t there are certam o ~ects d of wheat. u . the coffee-tree an . d t between the troplcs, such, for of culture, of ve ry ancient ah 'e ,h th oriO'in cannot be veri'f i ed . 1 b ana of w 1c e o . example, as t te an . ' h b en known to carry, m all . • dern times, ave e . A.r mie. s, m mo· nd cult1. vate d ve getables from one ex.t remity directiOns, gram a d h h ve shown us how, m more h ther an t us a . of Europe tot eo ' f Alexander the distant expedl- . · the conquests o ' anctent t1mes·,R nd af terwar d s the Crusades, may have tions of the omans, a t of the world to the transported many plants from one par other~.'' d. ri'culture the number which 'd th lants use mag ' But bes1 es er P 'd hich man has spread d by acCl ent, or w have been natur~ Ize . bl One of our old authors, Jos-unintentionally, IS considera e. h 1 ts as bad in his time, . t 1 gue of sue P an ' selyn, glves a ca a o . th English planted and kept · th olony smce e sprung up m e c two and twenty in number. . N England They were . ed cattle m ew ttle w· as the fi rs t wh ich the settlers notlc ,' The common ne h 1 d' ns '' English mans d the plantain was called by t e n la ' an . . from their footsteps t · foot," as lf lt sprung h , observes Decandolle, " We have introduced everyw ere, . k' ds of wheat, h. h mong our various m " some weeds w IC grow a . . lly from Asia • ed haps or1gma and which have been recelv . ' pher B b wheat, the inbabi-with them. Thus, together wlth t e ar ary • Decandolle, Essai Eleroen. &c. P· 50. t Quarterly Review, vol. xxx., P· 8. Ch. V.] DISPERSION O:Jl' PLANTS • 88 tants of the south of Europe have sown, for many ages, the plants of Algiers and Tunis. With the wools and cottons of the East, or of Barbary, there are often brought into France, the grains of exotic plants, some of which naturalize themselves. Of this I will cite a striking example. There is at the gate of Montpelier, a meadow set apart for drying foreign wool after it has been washed. There hardly passes a year without some foreign plants being found naturalized in this drying ground. I have gathered there Centaurea parvi:flora, Psoralea palrestina, and Hypericum crispum." This fact is not only illustrative of the aid which man lends inadvertently to the propagation of plants, but it also demonstrates the multiplicity of seeds which are borne about in the woolly and hairy coats of wild animals. The same botanist mentions instances of plants naturalized in sea-ports by the ballast of ships, and several examples of others which have spread through Europe from botanical gardens, so as to have become more common than many indigenous species. It is scarcely a century, says Linn~us *, since the Canadian erigiron, or flea-bane, was brought from America to the botanical garden at Paris, and already the seeds have been carried by the winds, so that it is diffused over France, the British islands, Italy, Sicily, Holland, and Germany. Several others are mentioned by the Swedish naturalist, as having been dis..: persed by similar means. The common thorn-apple, Datura stramonium, observes Willdenow, now grows as a noxious weed throughout all Europe, with the exception of Sweden, Lapland, and Russia. It came from the East Indies and Abyssinia to us, and was so universally spread by certain quacks who used its seed as an emetic f. In hot and ill-cultivated countries, such naturalizations take place more easily. Thus the Chenopodium ambrosioides, sown by Mr. Burchell on a point of St. Helena, multiplied s~ • Essay on the Habitable Earth, Ammn. Acad, v~l. ii. p. 409. ·~ Principles of Botany, p. 389. G2 |