PREFATORY NOTE 23 



be some new forms of unusual value. 

 The few gains are positive acquisition. 

 For the sake of one great advance, 

 he can afford to burn thousands of 

 plants of which the combinations of 

 inheritable character show little or no 

 improvement over the parent stocks. 



With both animals and plants the 

 general process of creating new forms 

 must of necessity pass through four 

 stages : 



1. Unconscious selection with more or 

 less isolation of domesticated forms. 



2. Conscious selection of desirable in- 

 dividuals. By this means, those most 

 available for man's purposes were pre- 

 served, and their traits, differing in 

 different regions, became distinctive 

 breed characters. This was the method 

 by which man created his primitive 

 sheep and the wolves he trained (as dogs) 

 to guard them. 



