vill DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 
of breeding, and even more so from the standpoint of human 
experience, particularly when we take into account the popular 
confusion of mind on these two points. The average student, 
noting the powerful influence of environment in the develop- 
ment of inherited tendencies, is likely not to fully realize that 
the environment is powerless except when the possibilities are 
presented by heredity. A study of this chapter should help to 
clear the mind of the student on this point. 
Chapter XV is designed to acquaint the student with some 
of the practical facts and problems connected with the actual 
improvement of animals, and is frankly admitted as designed 
to stimulate interest in grading. 
Chapter NVI, dealing with plants, is intended to make the 
methods of improvement still more familiar and to stimulate a 
desire to take a hand in its trial, which, if seriously undertaken, 
will be found not only interesting but highly educative, 
Chapters NVII-NNI deal with the origin of domesticated 
races, and are designed as supplementary text or as reference 
matter, according to the needs of the school. 
Any good high school may undertake something definite in 
the way of animal and plant studies with reference to practical 
improvement. The principles laid down in the text and the dis- 
cussion are ample to enable it to do so, if teacher and pupil 
alike are so disposed, and the school may, if it will, become a 
force in the neighborhood. 
First of all, it should have a little land on which at least a 
collection of common plants may be studied. A vacant lot in 
the city or a corner of a field in the country will answer, but a 
definite piece of land near the school, set aside for the purpose, 
is more desirable than either. 
With the growing interest in agriculture, the best schools are 
being provided not with a farm which they do not need, but 
with a field of five to ten acres for experimental and demon- 
stration purposes, which they do need. This work may well 
occupy a place in such a field. 
