VARIATION UNDER DOMESTICATION 41 



me not improbable that if we could succeed in naturaliz- 

 ing, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the 

 several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor 

 soil (in which case, liowever, some effect would have to 

 be attributed to the definite action of the poor soil), that 

 they would, to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to 

 the wild aboriginal stock. Whether or not the experi- 

 ment would succeed is not of great importance for our 

 line of argument; for^iy the experiment itself the condi- 

 tions of life are changed. If it could be shown that our 

 domestic varieties manifested a strong tendency to rever- 

 sion — that is, to lose their acquired characters, while kept 

 under the same conditions, and while kept in a consider- 

 able body, so that free intercrossing might check, by 

 blending together, any slight deviations in their struc- 

 ture, in such case, I grant that we could deduce nothing 

 from domestic varieties in regard to species. But there 

 is not a shadow of evidence in favor of this view: to 

 assert that we could not breed our cart and race- horses, 

 long and short-horned cattle, and poultry of various 

 breeds, and esculent vegetables, for an unlimited num- 

 ber of generations, would be opposed to all experience. 



Character of Domestic Varieties; difficulty of distinguishing 



betiveen Varieties and Species; origin of Domestic 



Varieties from one or more Species 



When we look to the hereditary varieties or races of 

 our domestic animals and plants, and compare them with 

 closely allied species, we generally perceive in each do- 

 mestic race, as already remarked, less uniformity of char- 

 acter than in true species. Domestic races often have a 

 somewhat monstrous character; by which I mean, that, 



