I shall speak presently of the species grown for the seed. +Leek+—_Allium ampeloprasum_, var. _Porrum_. According to the careful monograph by J. Gay,[442] the leek, as early writers[443] suspected, is only a cultivated variety of _Allium ampeloprasum_ of Linnæus, so common in the East, and in the Mediterranean region, especially in Algeria, which in Central Europe sometimes becomes naturalized in vineyards and round ancient cultivations.[444] Gay seems to have mistrusted the indications of the floras of the south of Europe, for, contrary to his method with other species of which he gives the localities out of Algeria, he only quotes in the present case the Algerian localities; admitting, however, the identity of name in the authors for other countries. The cultivated variety of _Porrum_ has not been found wild. It is only mentioned in doubtful localities, such as vineyards, gardens, etc. Ledebour[445] indicates for _A. ampeloprasum_ the borders of the Crimea, and the provinces to the south of the Caucasus. Wallich brought a specimen from Kamaon, in India,[446] but we cannot be sure that it was wild. The works on Cochin-China (Loureiro), China (Bretschneider), and Japan (Franchet and Savatier) make no mention of it. _Article II._—+Fodder.+ +Lucern+—_Medicago sativa_, Linnæus. The lucern was known to the Greeks and Romans. They called it in Greek _medicai_, in Latin medica, or _herba medica_, because it had been brought from Media at the time of the Persian war, about 470 years before the Christian era.[447] The Romans often cultivated it, at any rate from the beginning of the first or second century. Cato does not speak of it,[448] but it is mentioned by Varro, Columella, and Virgil. De Gasparin[449] notices that Crescenz, in 1478, does not mention it in Italy, and that in 1711 Tull had not seen it beyond the Alps. Targioni, however, who could not be mistaken on this head, says that the cultivation of lucern was maintained in Italy, especially in Tuscany, from ancient times.[450] It is rare in modern Greece.[451] French cultivators have often given to the lucern the name of _sainfoin_, which belongs properly to _Onobrychis sativa_; and this transposition still exists, for instance in the neighbourhood of Geneva. The name _lucern_ has been supposed to come from the valley of Luzerne, in Piedmont; but there is another and more probable origin. The Spaniards had an old name, _eruye_, mentioned by J. Bauhin,[452] and the Catalans call it _userdas_[453] whence perhaps the patois name in the south of France, _laouzerdo_, nearly akin to _luzerne_. It was so commonly cultivated in Spain that the Italians have sometimes called it _herba spagna_.[454] The Spaniards have, besides the names already given, _mielga_, or _melga_, which appears to come from _Medica_, but they principally used names derived from the Arabic—_alfafa_, _alfasafat_, _alfalfa_. In the thirteenth century, the famous physician Ebn Baithar, who wrote at