CHAPTER II 

 DOMESTICATED RACES ORIGINATED IN THE WILD 



Domesticated races vary • Creation not yet finished • Most domesticated races 

 have close relatives in the wild • Domesticated species existed first in the 

 wild • Species change in domestication • Improvement sometimes slight- 

 Domestication a gradual process • How the history of domestication is 

 known • Not always able to identify the original • Distinction between 



feral and wild 



Whence , came our domesticated animals and our cultivated 

 plants ? Were our horses, our cattle, our sheep, and our swine 

 created in the beginning as they are to-day, or have they de- 

 scended from other, older, and somewhat different races ? 

 Were they made especially for our benefit, or have we drafted 

 them into our service ? 



Were our wheat, our corn, our clover and alfalfa, our apples 

 and vegetables, created for the particular delectation of man, 

 or have they been discovered and appropriated by him to meet 

 his special needs ? 



Were they always as they are now in form and color and 

 quality, or have they been developed from preexisting species 

 and somewhat changed in the process ? 



Domesticated races vary. The last question is easiest an- 

 swered. The domesticated races were not always what they 

 are to-day, for many have arisen within recent times and some 

 within the recollection of men yet living. For example, the 

 Shorthorn cattle were developed in England within the last 

 hundred and fifty years, and the trotting horse is an American 

 product developed since the Civil War. 



The most common pig of the Mississippi valley is the Poland 

 China, which developed in the Miami valley as the Chester 

 White developed in Chester County, Pennsylvania. 



