It is not improbable that most of these do exist
wild, but they have been so profoundly changed by thousands of years of
cultivation as to be quite unrecognisable. The peach is unknown in a
wild state, unless it is derived from the common almond, on which point
there is much difference of opinion among botanists and horticulturists.
The immense antiquity of most of our cultivated plants sufficiently
explains the apparent absence of such useful productions in Australia
and the Cape of Good Hope, notwithstanding that they both possess an
exceedingly rich and varied flora. These countries having been, until a
comparatively recent period, inhabited only by uncivilised men, neither
cultivation nor selection has been carried on for a sufficiently long
time. In North America, however, where there was evidently a very
ancient if low form of civilisation, as indicated by the remarkable
mounds, earthworks, and other prehistoric remains, maize was cultivated,
though it was probably derived from Peru; and the ancient civilisation
of that country and of Mexico has given rise to no fewer than
thirty-three useful cultivated plants.
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