Transfer of Vegetable Life

It belongs to vegetable and animal geography, which are almost sciences of themselves, to point out in detail what man has done to change the distribution of plants and of animated life and to revolutionize the aspect of organic nature; but some of the more important facts bearing on this subject may pertinently be introduced here. Most of the fruit trees grown in Europe and the United States are believed, and—if the testimony of Pliny and other ancient naturalists is to be depended upon—many of them are historically known, to have originated in the temperate climates of Asia. The wine grape has been thought to be truly indigenous only in the regions bordering on the eastern end of the Black Sea, where it now, particularly on the banks of the Rion, the ancient Phasis, propagates itself spontaneously, and grows with unexampled luxuriance. But, some species of the vine seem native to Europe, and many varieties of grape have been too long known as common to every part of the United States to admit of the supposition that they were all introduced by European colonists.

It is an interesting fact that the commerce—or at least the maritime carrying trade—and the agricultural and mechanical industry of the world are, in very large proportion, dependent on vegetable and animal products little or not at all known to ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish civilization. In many instances, the chief supply of these articles comes from countries to which they are probably indigenous, and where they are still almost exclusively grown; but in many others, the plants or animals from which they are derived have been introduced by man into the regions now remarkable for their most successful cultivation, and that, too, in comparatively recent times, or, in other words, within two or three centuries.