The crops of wheat were mixed with spring rye, peas, chickling vetch and so-called bitter vetch. [1] The crops were exclusively irrigated. The lack of rain caused an exceptional whiteness of the ripening bread grains. There is neither rust nor any mildew here. Indeed, much of the covered smut is washed off in the mountain brooks, where the grains are placed in a sieve under jets of water.
The discoveries of cultivated plants in the Pamirs exceeded all our expectations. Full understanding of these finds became feasible only as a result of much subsequent work — comparative studies of crops harvested, investigations in other countries and comparisons with the development of all the cultivated crops in the world. The essence of the genesis of this cultivated flora is, in brief, the following: mankind in its difficult struggle for existence within the densely populated areas of southwestern Asia, including Inner Asia, had long since been forced to settle at almost inaccessible altitudes. Saving themselves from oppression, the poor had fled to the mountains. The mountainous areas of southwestern Asia had, just like the mountains of Africa, the Cordilleras, the Central Asiatic highlands and alpine Caucasus, been settled thousands of years ago by agricultural populations. The conditions for existence were difficult. It was necessary to fight for every parcel of land. The fields in the Pamirs often measure only a few square metres; they have to be isolated behind stonewalls and then irrigated. All this requires a lot of work. However, fortunately, there is enough heat, light and water. Under the conditions of high altitude and isolation, remarkable and highly productive forms of plants were developed, which differed by early ripening, rapid growth and tolerance of low temperatures during the night, even during summertime.
The isolation promoted selection of forms not known on the lowlands, so-called recessives, typical representatives of which are, for instance, non-ligulate wheat and rye with simplified leaves. The mountains are the realm of barley, peculiar, high-altitude Asiatic peas and blue chickling vetch with small, dark seeds. Side by side with profoundly primitive forms, linking the cultivated varieties and the initial, wild forms, it is possible to see original results of inbreeding there in the form of the non-ligulate, recessive bread grains. All bears witness to a production here of entirely new and little known forms under conditions of a strange environment. The originality of this flora corroborated more and more the understanding of this territory as one of the centres for the formation of cultivated plants. For me, as a scientist, it became increasingly clear that it was necessary to penetrate deeper into southwestern Asia into Afghanistan, Chitral, Nuristan (formerly Kafiristan) and northwestern India.
Notes:
- Vicia ervilia Willd. [↩]
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