rere) DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 
of staple needs further attention. It was good enough for them, 
but nothing attainable is too good for us, in our opinion 
at least. 
In nature, if a plant seeds freely it will probably survive, and 
it makes little difference whether all or only a few individuals 
seed abundantly, but when we raise a crop we desire an abun- 
dant yield, and to secure this every individual plant should do 
its share. In domestication we want no laggards. 
Fruits and flowers may easily be sufficiently sweet and juicy, 
or showy and fragrant to be attractive to animals and insects, 
and thus secure the essential points of fertilization and distri- 
bution ; but with our refined sensibilities and educated tastes we 
require and exact the finest flowers, the most delicate colors, and 
the most delicious fragrance that can be produced by the most 
discriminating selection. 
Not all the results of natural selection are useful to us. Some 
of the achievements of natural selection do not commend them- 
selves to our favor, as, for example, when the seeds of the stipa 
grass, with their sharp and barbed points adapted to boring and 
their twisted, crooked tails adapted.to pushing and twisting, get 
upon our animals and enter the flesh. Then our admiration for 
the fine adaptations of nature is turned to alarm, as it is when 
the botfly torments our horse to hatch her young in his stomach, 
or the yellow-fever germ enters our blood by way of the bite! 
of the mosquito, 
Even some of our most useful species bring with them certain 
traits highly developed by natural selection, which are worse than 
useless for our purposes. For example, the extreme timidity 
of the horse, akin to that of the deer and the antelope, is useful 
to him in nature, no doubt, but for our purpose we should like 
to exchange it for the quiet confidence of the dog, which is born 
of boldness rather than of timidity and is toned down by associa- 
tion with his master. As it is, we must develop the confidence 
of the horse against his natural instincts. 
1 It is needless to remark that the mosquito does not truly bite. 
