Hewes, Albert F. Hill and Paul C. Mangelsdorf and 
Mrs. Margaret A. Towle. 
In the understanding of any biological entity, it is 
first necessary to recognize and to characterize the ele- 
ments of the group in question. When this is accom- 
plished, one is able to investigate profitably the distri- 
bution, history and relationships of the form or group 
of forms. Unfortunately, the cultivated plants present 
the botanist with problems the complexity of which is 
rarely equaled among other organisms. By becoming 
associated with man the plants are partially freed from 
the restrictions of natural selection and carried to new 
areas where they may hybridize with related types from 
which they would otherwise be isolated. Man, in addi- 
tion, aids in the development of new types by conscious 
and unconscious selection. Al] this leads to an inordinate 
degree of variability in such populations, an understand- 
ing of which can rarely be achieved by any one limited 
field of approach. However, with careful and discerning 
morphological study and the application of cytology and 
genetics, the newer tools of taxonomy, and with the 
cooperation of the ethnologist and the archaeologist it 
is possible to obtain results of very great value to all 
concerned. 
The plants and animals domesticated by man have 
certain unique qualities which cause them to be of in- 
terest to the anthropologist. These center about the fact 
that they, themselves, are organisms, biological entities 
which may be studied as such, as well as in their rela- 
tionships to man. In other words, though shaped by 
their association with man, they do not so nearly repre- 
sent mere products of the human mind as do many other 
phases of human culture which we study. 
Aside from the very basic importance of cultivated 
plants to all advanced cultures, there are more practical 
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