CHAPTER n. 



TEAITSFEE, MODIFIOATION AND EXTIRPATION OF VEGETABLE AND 

 OF ANIMAL SPECIES. 



Modern geography takes account of organic life — Geographical importance 

 of plants — Origin of domestic vegetables — Transfer of vegetable life — 

 Objects of modem commerce — Foreign plants, how introduced — Vegeta- 

 ble power of accommodation — Agricultural products of the United States 

 — Useful American plants grown in Europe — Extirpation of vegetables — 

 Animal life as a geological and geographical agency — Origin and transfer 

 of domestic quadrupeds — Extirpation of wild quadrupeds — Large marine 

 animals relatively unimportant in geography — Introduction and breeding 

 of fish — Destruction of fish — Geographical importance of birds — Intro- 

 duction of birds — Destruction of birds — Utility and destruction of rep- 

 tiles — Utility of insects and worms — Injury to the forest by insects — In- 

 troduction of insects — Destruction of insects — Minute organisms. 



Modern Geogi'aphy embraces Orgcmio Life. 



It "was a narrow view of geography wMcli confined that science 

 to delineation of terrestrial surface and outline, and to description 

 of the relative position and magnitude of land and water. In its 

 improved form it embraces not only the globe itself and the at- 

 mosphere which bathes it, but the hving things which vegetate 

 or move upon it, the varied influences they exert upon each 

 other, the reciprocal action and reaction between them and the 

 earth they inhabit. Even if the end of geographical studies 

 were only to obtain a knowledge of the external forms of the 

 mineral and fluid masses which constitute the globe, it would 

 still be necessary to take into account the element of life ; for i 

 every plant, every animal, is a geographical agency, man gener- 1 

 erally a destructive ; vegetables, and in some cases even wild 

 beasts, restorative powers. 



The rushing waters of rains and of melting snows sweep down 

 earth from the uplands ; in the first moment of repose, vegetation 

 Beeks to re-establish itself on the bared surface, and, by the slow 

 ■deposit of its decaying products, to raise again the soil which the 



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