BETTER PLANTS AND ANIMALS 21 



that a successful type under one set of conditions is not likely 

 to succeed under the other set of conditions. 



In other respects than the mere power to get along under 

 difficulties, the domesticated and improved species are much 

 more powerful than wild species. For example, the specialized 

 beef animal is capable of attaining a greater weight at twelve 

 months of age than that which the unimproved type attains 

 when fully grown. The wild cow produced only enough milk 

 to nourish one calf for a few months. Some of the best of the 

 modern cows have produced an amount of milk which might 

 have nourished fifteen calves (Fig. 13). There is no plant in 

 wild nature that compares with corn in its power to produce 

 grain and forage or that will compare with wheat, oats, or rice 

 in grain production. 



The more we improve and specialize our plants and animals, 

 the farther we remove them from wild nature; and the more 

 we increase their power to produce under favorable conditions, 

 the more we diminish their power to get along under adverse 

 conditions. The farmer of the future will not be concerned as 

 to how much hardship his plants and animals, if left uncared for, 

 will endure and survive, but rather as to the largest quantity 

 of highly specialized products that they can produce under the 

 best conditions. Therefore, in scientific agriculture the agri- 

 culture of the future the highest esteem will not be bestowed, 

 as it is in wild nature, upon those plants and animals which 

 can survive under the most adverse conditions, but upon those 

 which respond most generously to good treatment. 



When we consider the plant population of the world's culti- 

 vated fields to-day and realize how new varieties have sprung 

 up, how new forms have multiplied, as our uses and tastes and 

 needs have grown ; when we realize how much of this produc- 

 tion of new breeds of plants is the result of the work of little t 

 more than two centuries ; and when we realize how great are 

 the opportunities for further improving even the oldest and best 

 known of our agricultural plants and animals then we may 

 begin to understand the greatness of the new agriculture. 



