A very interesting point on which, however, it is quite impossible to come to a definite decision, may be noticed here. We will suppose what is quite as likely as any other theory, viz. that man as a gardening creature first settled somewhere in the Euphrates or Caucasian valleys. What wild plants, then, would have been available for his experiments? This particular region is an interesting and remarkable one. Most of our common British plants occur along the shore of the Black Sea to the Caucasus (apple, pear, nut, turnip, cabbage, carrot, and others, are all probably to be found there). On the Babylonian side of the mountains, there is a warm sub-tropical climate in which almost every useful plant can be grown. The desert also contains a few other valuable plants. Near Ararat, Noah might have found rye, wheat, and barley growing wild. The Wild Vine also grows on the south of the Caucasus. "It grows there with the luxuriant wildness of a tropical creeper, clinging to tall trees and producing abundant fruit without pruning or cultivation."[121] In that favoured district, the olive and the fig, the melon and cucumber, onions, garlic, and shallots, and other common garden and medicinal plants, can be found. Not far away is the native country of the camel, the ass, the horse, and most other domestic animals. [121] De Candolle, _Origin of Cultivated Plants_. [Illustration: _Stereo Copyright, Underwood & Underwood_ _London & New York_ RICEFIELDS IN THE CEYLON HILLS The buffaloes are puddling up the soil before the seed is planted.] Were these hillsides of Ararat or thereabouts, the first place where man sowed and reaped a harvest? At any rate, in those flat, fertile, alluvial plains of the Euphrates, and also in Egypt, the first great cities arose. But even in the later Stone Age, which may have been about 58,000 B.C., some of these Caucasian plants seem to have been in cultivation in Switzerland. Probably every subsequent invasion, first that of races with bronze weapons, and then of others in the Iron Age, brought with it new cultivated plants. The Oat seems to be an exception to the rule, for, so far as one can gather, it was not a native of Asia Minor. The first harvest was, however, in all probability, a very casual and occasional kind of thing.