PART FH 
THE ORIGIN OF DOMESTICATED RACES 
Part II deals with the material out of which domesticated 
species and varieties have been made. It aims to sketch briefly, 
as far as it is known, the history of domestication and to indicate 
as well as may be done at the present time the specific wild race 
to which each domesticated form is supposed to trace when run 
back to its wild progenitors. The limitations of space forbid 
anything more than the briefest outline, but to further assist the 
student the text is supplied with references to fuller sources of — 
information, 
The attempt to trace the history of domesticated animals and 
plants back to their primitive forms is beset with many difficulties. 
First of all, the domesticated races have been substantially altered 
during their long removal from the wild, subject primarily to 
man’s selection ; and again, in the centuries that have elapsed 
since domestication, many a wild race has become extinct, and 
because of this we may often be deceived as to the exact par- 
entage and be inclined to credit it to some near relative that 
has persisted ; still again, wild races themselves change without 
man’s interference, and for all these reasons this attempt to 
assign definite sources of our domesticated races must be 
regarded as more or less approximate in its conclusions. 
The student will be struck with the fact that most of our 
animals and plants trace to Old-World forms. This is not 
necessarily because the New World was less prolific in valuable 
material, but rather because civilization, as we know it at least, 
commenced in Asia and worked westward. In this way much 
valuable material indigenous to the American continent was 
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