Failing satisfactory proofs of wild plants, I formerly urged, in my _Géographie Botanique Raisonnée_, an argument of some value. _Secale cereale_ sows itself from cultivation, and becomes almost wild in parts of the Austrian empire,[1875] which is seldom seen elsewhere.[1876] Thus in the east of Europe, where history points to an ancient cultivation, rye finds at the present day the most favourable conditions for living without the aid of man. It can hardly be doubted, from these facts, that its original area was in the region comprised between the Austrian Alps and the north of the Caspian Sea. This seems the more probable that the five or six known species of the genus _Secale_ inhabit western temperate Asia or the south-east of Europe. Admitting this origin, the Aryan natives would not have known the species, as philology already shows us; but in their migrations westward they must have met with it under different names, which they transported here and there. +Common Oats+ and +Eastern Oats+—_Avena sativa_, Linnæus; _Avena orientalis_, Schreber. The ancient Egyptians and the Hebrews did not cultivate oats, but they are now grown in Egypt.[1877] There is no Sanskrit name, nor any in modern Indian languages. They are only now and then planted by the English in India for their horses.[1878] The earliest mention of oats in China is in an historical work on the period 618 to 907 A.D.; it refers to the variety known to botanists as _Avena sativa nuda_.[1879] The ancient Greeks knew the genus very well; they called it _bromos_,[1880] as the Latins called it _avena_; but these names were commonly applied to species which are not cultivated, and which are weeds mixed with cereals. There is no proof that they cultivated the common oats. Pliny’s remark[1881] that the Germans lived on oatmeal, implies that the species was not cultivated by the Romans. The cultivation of oats was, therefore, practised anciently to the north of Italy and of Greece. It was diffused later and partially in the south of the Roman empire. It is possible that it was more ancient in Asia Minor, for Galen[1882] says that oats were abundant in Mysia, above Pergamus; that they were given to horses, and that men used them for food in years of scarcity. A colony of Gauls had formerly penetrated into Asia Minor. Oats have been found among the remains of the Swiss lake-dwellings of the age of bronze,[1883] and in Germany, near Wittenburg, in several tombs of the first centuries of the Christian era, or a little earlier.[1884] Hitherto none have been found in the lake-dwellings of the north of Italy, which confirms the belief that oats were not cultivated in Italy in the time of the Roman republic.