32 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 



Many good and useful species, however, have been lost, and 

 many far less valuable have lingered. 



Just now we are beginning to realize the possible value of a 

 species that has come upon the earth, made its way, and main- 

 tained its place among competitors, if perchance it possesses 

 qualities that are now, or that by attention may be, developed 

 into characters useful to man. The muskmelon is an example 

 of a species most unpromising in nature, and therefore neg- 

 lected almost until our own day, yet yielding readily to im- 

 provement and producing most delicious fruit. The tomato is 

 another example, and asparagus another. 



Recognizing these facts as never before, the Department of 

 Agriculture at Washington is scouring the world in search 

 of plants of possible economic value, or those that are likely to 

 yield to the ameliorating influences of the breeder and the cul- 

 tivator. Even if not now valuable, those that are likely to be- 

 come so are well worth the most careful consideration. In this 

 way domestication of plants is at last becoming a systematic, not 

 to say a scientific, business. 



This search for the possibly useful is coming to be nearly as 

 systematic and far-reaching as the scouring of the earth, by 

 such firms as Parke, Davis & Company, of Detroit, for plants 

 with new and possibly valuable medicinal qualities. 



Domestication a gradual process. Southeastern Asia was un- 

 doubtedly the first area of domestication, with Egypt a close 

 second. Europe came later, and America last of all. Each made 

 its contribution to the stock of domesticated animals and plants 

 by adding what was lacking, by making use of some specially 

 valuable native, or by utilizing the wild stock of the region when 

 the cultivated races failed to acclimate, as was the case with 

 European grapes in the eastern United States. 



In a general way the history of these civilizations is the story 

 of their domestications as well, and a critical reading of that 

 history with this particular subject in mind affords many side 

 lights on the people, as, for example, the terror of the Indians 



