26 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 



a new list of plants came into cultivation, greatly extending our 

 farming operations, — all in order to meet the needs of an ad- 

 vancing civilization. And the end is not yet, for the demand is 

 still for more and better fabrics. 



Need for labor. From the beginning man was a lazy animal. 

 Like his associates, he bestirred himself only in the presence of 

 extreme necessity. He acquired the horse to add to his fleet- 

 ness of limb, and thereby learned the lesson that riding is not 

 only faster but easier than walking. 



Besides, when man undertook the somewhat wholesale domes- 

 tication of animals and plants he assumed an immense burden 

 not only of responsibility but of labor. If now he was to under- 

 take to provide the horse's food, what more natural than that 

 the horse should pull the plow 1 to raise his own provender? 

 Then, too, with the accumulated property to be carried from 

 place to place, not only for storage but for trading with people 

 who desired exchange, still new uses for the horse were found. 



In this and other ways not only the horse was put to work, 

 but other animals like the ox, the camel, and the llama were 

 domesticated chiefly for their labor. Thus with the passing of 

 the hunt the old occupation of the horse is gone, but he has 

 found other uses which are no less valuable in our eyes, and we 

 cannot foresee the time when the so-called "horseless age" will 

 be truly ushered in. 2 



Domestication the first step in civilization. Every hungry 

 man is a savage, whatever his stage of development, and no 

 race is ready to lay even the foundations of a civilization till it 

 has provided itself with an ample and assured food supply. As 

 long as primitive man depended solely upon the hunt, so long 

 did he alternate between fast and famine, with the certainty that 

 in the end the famine would get him. 



1 The original plow was not the traditional forked stick. It was without 

 doubt simply a sharp stick drawn by a cord or vine, and held by the attendant 

 in a slanting direction. 



2 In spite of all the talk about doing away with horses, their numbers and 

 prices are steadily increasing. 



