16 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 
Improvement sometimes slight. In a few cases this improve- 
ment is far less pronounced than in others. For example, the 
best wild strawberries and blackberries are undoubtedly equal in 
flavor to the cultivated, though far inferior in productiveness 
and in size. The Catawba grape was found wild in North Caro- 
lina, practically identical with its present form, but it was the 
only vine of its kind. 
The fur-bearing animals, like most kinds of fish, have never 
been domesticated ; indeed, it is an open question if man could 
maintain artificial conditions that would preserve in captivity the 
same quality of fur attained in the wild state. 
Domestication a gradual process. Civilization has developed 
not from one but from many centers, and many animals and 
plants have been domesticated, not once, but many times. 
Every ‘woods boy” has had his pet “coon” or crow, and 
every savage tribe its horde of dogs, each going to the wild 
for what it wanted. 
Some parts of the world were ahead of others in the process 
of civilization and also in the business of domestication. While 
our own ancestors were chasing the Auroch! in the wilds of 
central Europe in Cesar’s time or hunting the wild boar? in 
the jungles of Germany, Asia had developed races and civiliza- 
tions that had risen, run their courses, disappeared, and been 
forgotten, giving place to others. There, then, was probably the 
earliest domestication, Asia is our largest continental area, with 
the greatest diversity in soil, climate, and exposure. It is there- 
fore richest in both animal and plant varieties, as it is oldest in 
civilization ; and we are not surprised to learn that many of our 
most useful species were here domesticated so long ago that it is 
impossible to say when, how, or by whom it was accomplished. 
Later than all this, however, and contemporaneous with the 
culture that belonged to Greece and the glory that was Rome’s, 
the Indian of our own country was as wild as the buffalo and 
1 The probable progenitor of most European breeds of cattle. 
2 The wild parent of certain European breeds of pig. 
