THE CARROT.—The wild carrot, _Daucus Carota_,[3] is a native of Europe and has become naturalized in this country to such an extent as to be ranked among the worst of weeds. The cultivated carrot was introduced into England by the Dutch, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (last half of the sixteenth century), and has since been much improved and quite generally grown. In its native or wild state the root is small, woody, and of very little value as an article of food. All of our so-called “root plants” in the wild state store up only sufficient food in the root to meet the wants of the plant the coming season. This tendency to accumulate has been developed under cultivation, and an excess is stored up, which is appropriated by man. The plant has enjoyed more favorable conditions for growth and been relieved in great part of the struggle for existence that is constantly going on among wild plants. All cultivated plants are living unnatural lives, being favored in various ways, and when they are left to shift for themselves either die or drift back, generation after generation, to the old original form from which the ancestors were forced to depart. No plant is a better illustration of this fact than the carrot. If left for only a few years, the fleshy rooted plants of the garden degenerate into the coarse, woody-rooted weeds of the pasture or hedge-row. We can not pass this point without endeavoring to enforce the importance of keeping up all the most favorable conditions of growth for garden vegetables, and carefully selecting seed of plants that show the least tendency to degenerate.