CHAPTER IV 
NEED OF IMPROVEMENT IN DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 
AND PLANTS 
Natural species not perfectly adjusted to our needs - Maintenance of animals 
costly - Further improvement needed - Need of more economic service - Some 
individuals better than others - Economic significance of differences in effi- 
ciency - The fact of variability established - Variability in a single character - 
Historical knowledge of original species needed 
Natural species not perfectly adjusted to our needs. If our 
animal and plant allies had been especially created for our serv- 
ice, it is to be assumed that they would have been perfectly 
adapted to our needs; but as they were appropriated from the 
wild, they ofttimes but imperfectly meet our requirements. 
For example, the horse is a little too timid, the bull too un- 
trustworthy and ferocious, the wool of the sheep either too coarse 
or too short for many needs; and all animals make meat only 
at enormous expense of feed, requiring, roughly speaking, about 
ten pounds of grain or its equivalent for one pound of meat. 
Corn has a little too much oil and not quite enough protein 
for the best feeding purposes, and the stalk is larger and 
heavier than we would like. Oats do not yield sufficiently in 
the warmer sections, and we still lack an ideal pasture grass for 
most regions of the earth. 
And so we might go on indefinitely, enumerating particulars 
in which we could wish our domesticated races were better 
adapted to our requirements. . 
Maintenance of animals costly. Few realize the expense of 
maintaining our extensive animal population. One cow will eat 
thirty dollars’ worth of feed in a year at ordinary prices, and 
more if she can get it. A horse will eat from fifty to seventy- 
five dollars’ worth, according to the way in which he is kept. 
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