Domesticated animals and plants; a brief treatise upon the origin and development of domesticated races, with special reference to the methods of improvement

Front matter

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Preface

-\^ Soon after the appearance of "Principles of Breeding" as ^ar college textbook, numerous letters came to both the author and the publishers, suggesting a volume along similar lines, but less technical in treatment and better adapted to the needs of high and normal schools, and appealing more specifically to the general student.

These suggestions, together with the growing interest in agriculture both as an occupation and as a subject for instruction in schools of various grades, encouraged the production of the present volume, which runs along the same general lines as " Principles of Breeding," except that more information is afforded as to the origin of domesticated races and the source of the materials out of which they have been formed, and less space is devoted to function and to the more philosophic treatment of variation and heredity.

More attention is given also to the general subjects of natural selection and the survival of the fittest as shown in the way of the wild, — subjects of importance to the high-school student as affording the foundation principles for improvement, and also as contributing to a more rational understanding of the general principles of evolution than commonly exists in the popular mind.

An incidental purpose has been to insure the student of the secondary school an acquaintance with the essential facts of reproduction as illustrated in plant life, and with the foundation principles in heredity, especially in degeneracy and crime, as illustrated in regression tables and the law of ancestral heredity. If the author has been at all successful at this point, the student will derive indirectly and by inference, through this study of

IV DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS

animals and plants, a certain knowledge of human relations which in all likelihood he would be unable to secure by the method of direct instruction, and yet which all thinking people need to possess, not only for their- own protection, but for the intelligent interpretation of public affairs along sociological lines.

After all, the main purpose of the book and the main hope of the writer is to interest the student in affairs of the farm, and to enlist on the part of high schools the same interest in the teaching of agriculture and the preparation for the affairs of country life as is now exercised in the teaching of other subjects and the preparation for other phases of life. \\' herever this new departure has been made it has been found that the educational value of subjects drawn from real life is surprisingly great, and the social and economic results are beyond computation. The hope to help this work forward has been, perhaps, the chief inspiration in the preparation of the following pages.

EUGENE DAVENPORT University of Illinois Urbana

TO THE TEACHER

This book is so arranged as to be adapted either to a brief or to a more extended course of study, a double purpose which is accomplished by dividing the subject matter into two parts.

Part I may be taken alone, constituting a brief course covering the essential principles that are fundamental to an understanding of hereditary transmission and of the business of plant and animal improvement.

Part II can be employed either as additional text or as reference matter, at the option of the teacher, and depending upon the time that is available.

In any case, whatever use is made of Part II, either as text or reference, it should be in connection with Part I, and not as succeeding it; that is to say. Part II should be taken in connection with or immediately following the first three chapters of Part I, and this use of Part II is highly recommended, because here is a collection of information, not commonly available, that throws light not only upon the sources of material out of which domesticated races have been made, but also upon many of the essential steps in improvement.

The author is especially anxious that the suggestions and exercises offered at the close of the chapters be accepted and followed. Each topic affords material full of interesting and profitable study, always from the standpoint of utility; and if the students will make some independent studies of this kind, they will be doubly repaid not only in the wealth of information accumulated, but in the experience gained in independent methods of study.

With the information afforded in the Appendix the teacher will be able to introduce the subject of stock judging. This introduction should be made early and continued throughout the vi DOMESTIC A TKI) ANIMALS AM) I'LAM'S

Study of the text. Almost any neighborhood will afford specimens entirely suitable for this purpose.

A glossary of terms will be found convenient in connection with both text and reference reading.

More explicitly, the purpose of the first three chapters is to bring out the way in which our domesticated races canic among us, and our dependence upon their services. In this connection and at this point should come as much as possible of the detailed study of separate species as given in Part II.

The intent of the writer at this point is fourfold : first, to arouse interest in the field which affords the subject matter of the real discussion ; second, to bring together a body of knowledge about domesticated animals and plants on which the student may rely, making it possible for other chapters to be less concrete and more abstract; third, to connect that body of knowledge with the zoology and the botany of the high school ; fourth, to give the student some acquaintimce with the behavior of animals and plants both in a state of nature and when undergoing domestication.

Chapters V and VI are designed not only to bring out the power of selection, but also to give the student some working knowledge of the complicated manner in which it operates in nature. Both error and bad science abound through the failure to distinguish between the facts of nature and the poetic license that is often employed by writers who choose nature subjects as means of teaching human truths. This kind of anthropomorphism we may wink at, if we understand what is meant when animals are made to talk and trees and flowers to think ; but we cannot forgive that kind of pseudoscience wherein, though the purpose of the writer is plainly to teach the facts of nature, )-et the facts are either badly distorted or incompletely conveyed.

In Chapter VII the distinct purpose is to draw the attention away from the animal or plant as an individual and direct it to the more or less independent units of which it is composed. A train of cars seen at a distance looks like a single unit, but

TO THE TEACHER vii

when more closely examined it is found to consist not only of engine and of separate cars, but also of wheel and axle, brake and drawbar. The whole is actuated by the energy of the coal and controlled by intelligence, acting through steam and compressed air, by means of lever brake and bell cord.

Chapter VIII introduces a brief study of the variability of a single character, and it serves not only to fix conceptions as to type, but as an introduction to statistical methods of study now much employed in the problems of breeding. This chapter will afford material for an exceedingly valuable class of problems, and its mastery is especially urged.

In Chapter IX the attempt is made to convey the essential facts of reproduction and lay the foundation for the study of heredity through the medium of the plant. The hope is that here and in Chapters X and XI more is taught by inference than is taught directly. It has been a secondary aim of the author to convey knowledge and make impressions that are applicable to certain human relations as well as to the subject in hand, but which from the nature of the case cannot be conveyed by the direct method.

Chapters XI and XII are designed to teach rational notions of descent and to correct the prevalent notion that heredity in some way fails unless the offspring is a duplicate of the parent. The old dogma that like begets like, and that the offspring is like the parent, is modified to read, " The offspring is like the parentage," and the succeeding chapter deals with the distribution of hereditary family qualities through the various members of the back ancestry. It is hoped that the careful study of these chapters will prepare the student for the real behavior of characters in transmission, and will enable him to comprehend both regression and progression, as well as reversion and degeneracy. It will also serve to show that transmission and heredity are complicated, not simple, facts.

Chapter XIV discusses the relative influences of heredity and environment, a discussion that is useful from the standpoint viii 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 development 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 XVI, 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 XVII-XXI 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 discussion 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 demonstration purposes, which they do need. This work may well occupy a place in such a field.

TO THE TEACHER ix

At the least let the school study variability. This may be done advantageously with four classes of cultivated plants, namely, flowers, garden vegetables, small fruits, and farm crops.

Of the first, pansies, petunias, sweet peas, and hollyhocks are well adapted to the purposes ; of vegetables, the best are potatoes and squashes; of small fruits, strawberries and raspberries; and of farm crops, none is better than corn, though wheat, oats, timothy, and clover all exhibit pronounced variations.

In some of these cases variability may be conveniently increased by crossing, as with the sweet pea, hollyhock, squash, and corn ; and in the potato and strawberry an endless supply of new strains may be had by planting the seeds.

If at all possible, this study of variability should be accompanied by attempts at improvement, which is especially easy with flowers and not at all impossible with such crops as potatoes and corn.

Large animals are, for the most part, out of reach of the operations of the school, except as it can draw upon the farm animals of the neighborhood, which everywhere afford material practically unlimited, both in numbers and variety.

There is no more favorable material for study, however, than chickens, and a small poultry plant is entirely feasible and in every way desirable in connection with the school.

It is fundamental that some one be definitely charged with the responsibility and care of any and all plants and animals kept for school purposes. This responsibility and care may properly devolve upon the same party who cares for the building and the grounds.

It may seem to some that to do work of this sort, and to study matters of this kind, is not the proper function of the school, and that its advocacy is a passing fancy. To such, let the author say that a new era is upon us, — an era in which at least a portion of the time and energ)^ of the schools must be devoted to useful things, and to none more properly than to the industry of agriculture, which directly engages the lives of one third of our population and provides food for all the people.

Part I The Meaning Of Domesticated Races And The Manner Of Their Improvement

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Dependence of Man upon Domesticated Animals

AND Plants 3

Animals and plants as sources of food — As sources of clothing — As sources of shelter — Vegetable products as sources of heat and light — Dependence of man upon animal labor — Animals a means of recreation — Animals and plants as sources of raw material for manufacturing purposes — Medicinal properties of animals and plants — The business of farming

II. Domesticated Races originated in the Wild ... 11

Domesticated races vary — Creation not yet finished — Most domesticated races have close relatives in the wild — Domesticated species existed first in the wild — Species change in domestication — Improvement sometimes slight — Domestication a gradual process — IIow the history of domestication is known

— Not always able to identify the original — Distinction between feral and wild

III. How Animals and Plants came to be Domesticated 20

Domestication the result of necessity — Need for help in the hunt — Need for additional food — Need for clothing and shelter — Need for labor — Domestication the first step in civilization — The civilizing effect of slavery — What animals have done for us — Unused materials — Lost possibilities — Domestication a gradual process — Species that were domesticated

IV. Need of Improvement in Domesticated Animals and Plants 35

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 efficiency

— The fact of variability established — Variability in a single character — Historical knowledge of original species needed xii DOMES'l'lCATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS

CHAPTER PAGE

V. The Way of the Wild 50

The astonishing abundance of Hfe — The struggle for existence — Selective effect of the natural conditions — Competition for food — Competition for room — Competition most severe between individuals of the same species^ Natural selection — Survival of the fittest — The individual and the race — Significance of numbers — Significance of vigor and length of life — Significance of offensive and defensive weapons — Significance of protective coloring and markings — Mimicry — Design in nature — Causes of color in animals and plants

VL Effect of Natural Selection 83

Natural selection means progressive development — Effect of selection upon the individual — Selection good for the species that can endure it — Selection fatal to a race that cannot endure its hardships — Interest of the individual and the race not identical — A close fit between a species and its environment is inevitable — Apparent exceptions due to absence of severe selection — Adaptation not necessarily perfect — Our standards of selection differ from those of nature — Not all the results of natural selection are useful to us — Our standards often require much readjustment of domesticated species — Natural selection always at work — Tower of selection to modify type

Vn. Unit Characters 98

Unit of study — Species composed of definite characters — Every individual possesses all the characters of the race — Characters developed and characters latent — Characters dominant and characters recessive — Correlation of characters — Lost characters — New characters — Characters and unit characters

Vin. Variaiulity of a Sinole Character 105

Critical study of a single character — Types — Plotting the frequency curve — The mean — The typical individual — Variability or deviation from type — Average deviation — Standard deviation — Coefficient of variability — Suggestions as to taking measurements — Suggestions as to grouping — Suggestions as to numbers — Suggestions as to taking samples — Advantages of statistical studies

IX. How Characters are 'rRANSMirrEn 121

Every species of its own kind — The machinery of transmission — P'ertilization — Fertilization in general — The material transmitted — Chromosomes — Development, or growth and differentiation — Termination to growth

X. \\'iiEN Development goes Wrong 130

Differentiation with development — Underdevelopment, or dwarfing — Overdevelopment, or giants — Arrested development of a single character or part — Overdevelopment of a single part — Doubling of parts — Fusing of parts — \Vhen unit characters get misplaced — Abnormal growths

CONTENTS xiil

CHAPTER PAGE

XI. How Characters behave in Transmission . . . .141

Characters tend to combine in definite mathematical proportions — Characters that do not blend — Mendel's law of hybrids — Dominant and recessive characters — Pure races may spring from crossing — Very few individuals pure — A second method of improvement — Improvement by hybridization complicated — Mutation and mutants — Origin of new and improved strains

XII. How THE Offspring compares with the Parent,

OR Descent with Modification 154

The complex nature of heredity — The offspring not like the parent — Mediocrity the common lot, whatever the parentage ; regression — Some offspring better and some worse than their parents — The exceptional parent and his offspring — Progression — The exceptional offspring and his parent — Reversion — Degeneracy

XIII. The Law of Ancestral Heredity 166

The extent to which the offspring resembles the parent and the extent to which he resembles more remote ancestors — Chance of resembling a particular individual ancestor — The individual a composite — The number "two"

XIV. Heredity and Environment 171

Mistaken estimate of environment — All the characters of the race, both good and bad, are transmitted to the individual by his parentage — The function of environment is to assist or to hinder in development — Environment does not add unit characters — Modifications due to environment

XV. Systematic Improvement of Animals 178

Origin of the " pure bred " — Pedigree registers — Advanced registry — Unregistered stock and scrubs — Systems of breeding — Source of sires — Herd improvement and breed improvement — Rational improvement — Choosing the breed — Breed differences slight — Market classes and grades — Knowledge of market requirements needful

XVI. Systematic Improvement of Plants 198

Improvement by selection — Crossing to produce new varieties

— Application of Mendel's law in crossing — Separation of the desired character — Behavior of the recessive — Behavior of the dominant — When. more than two characters are involved

— Systems of planting — Records xiv DOMESTICATED ANLMALS AND PLANTS

Part II The Origin Of Domesticated Races Chapter Page

Domesticated mammals — The dog — The horse — The ass

— The ox — The sheep — The goat — The pig — The cat — Domesticated birds — The hen — The goose — The duck — The turkey — The peacock — The swan — The guinea fowl

— Additional races and semidomestication — Unwelcome domestication

XVIII. Oricin of Cultivated Grains and Grasses . . 241

Cultivated plants, like domesticated animals, originated in the wild — Wheat — Harley — Indian Corn — Oats — Rye — Rice

— Sorghum — Sugar ("ane — Millet — Buckwheat — Timothy

— ]51ue Crass — Redtop — Orchard grass — The Festucas — Miscellaneous grasses

XIX. Orkhn of the Cultivated Legumes 257

Clover — Alfalfa — The lentil — The bean — The pea — The vetch — The lupine — The soybean — The cowpea

The apple — The pear — The plum — The sour cherry — The peach — The apricot — The orange and the lemon — The banana— The pineapple — The grape — The strawberry — . The raspberry — The blackberry — The melon — Miscellaneous fruits

XXI. Orioin of Farm and Garden Vegetables and

The potato — The sweet potato — Miscellaneous tubers — Edible Roots — The onion — The beet — Manioc, or mandioca

— The turnip — Miscellaneous roots — Vegetables cultivated for their foliage — Cabbage — Celery — Eettuce — Asparagus

— Plants cultivated for beverage — Coffee — Tea — Alate — riants grown for sedative effect — The poppy — Coca — The betel — Tobacco — Fiber plants — Cotton — Hax — Hemp — Ornamental plants — Weeds

Appendix 301

Glossary 3'-

Index ' 3'7

PART I

THE MEANING OF DOMESTICATED RACES AND THE MANNER OF THEIR IMPROVEMENT

Chapter I The Dependence Of Man Upon Domesticated Animals And Plants

Animals and plants as sources of food • As sources of clothing • As sources of shelter • Vegetable products as sources of heat and light • Dependence of man upon animal labor • Animals a means of recreation • Animals and plants as sources of raw material for manufacturing purposes • Medicinal properties ■ of animals and plants • The business of farming

Few realize the extent of our dependence upon the plant and animal life about us, and the variety of ways in which domesticated animals and cultivated plants have been made to serve the interests and forward the plans and purposes of man.

Animals and plants as sources of food. Aside from air and water there is no article of food, common or uncommon, that does not come directly from the animal or the plant.

Meat, milk, and eggs, the three standard animal foods, represent the body and its products. Bread, however made, represents the starchy seeds of certain plants, and edible oils are invariably of either plant or animal origin.

To these staples we add, for luxury and for health, a great variety of fruits and vegetables, not to mention sweets, but they all arise from plant life somewhere in the world.

Most of the food plants are cultivated, and most of the animals are domesticated. The savage may live by the hunt, but it is one of the first evidences of civilization that a race provides an ample and assured food supply in its domesticated animals and cultivated crops.

To be sure, a certain amount of meat still comes from game like the deer and the moose, but the proportion is small and is growing smaller every year. The pioneer, like the Indians, depended largely on the hunt, but the buffalo is extinct and the game animals generally are restricted to the protected preserves where they linger only by virtue of stringent laws.

Fish have been strictly undomesticated in the past, but now all the promising rivers and lakes are systematically " stocked," so that even these lowest of all food animals are almost half domesticated, in that they are systematically cared for. Any way we stud\- the problem we always arrive at the same conclusion, name])-, that we are absolutely dependent for food upon the products of [)h\nt and animal life.

Animals and plants as sources of clothing. Primitive man clothes himself in skins, like the L^skimo, if he needs their warmth, or in grasses, like the I'^iji islander, if he does not. Civilized man, however, refining upon savage customs, weaves a cloth out of the fiber of the pelt or of the leaf, and cuts himself garments that fit the body and lend themselves to its movements. In this way the wool of the sheep and the fiber of the cotton and the flax furnish the material out of which the world clothes itself.

Aside from furs, and many of these come from lambs and from cats, we draw our clothing supply from animals and plants living under the direct management and control of man, that is, domesticated. The wool of the sheep, the fur of the vicufia, and the hair of the llama and the alpaca are all body coverings shorn for spinning. The fiber of cotton and of flax represent two of our principal crops the world oxer, and the silk that is spun by the insignificant worm represents an industry invoh'ing thousands of people, millions of worms, and acres of mulberry trees. In clothing, therefore, as in food, our supply is mainly drawn from domesticated races.

THE DEPENDENCE OF MAN 5

Animals and plants as sources of shelter. Such of our ancestors as were fortunate enough to inhabit mountain districts lived in caves, but as the more venturesome and ambitious sought their fortunes on the plains, where civilization develops, they made themselves tents or tabernacles of the skins of animals and afterward of woven cloth. Only later were shelters built of lumber, bricks, or stone. Our own race has developed its civilization in habitations made of wood, but with the passing of the years and the destruction of natural forests, we shall more and more build of indestructible materials not the product of either plant or animal life.

For our furniture and our furnishings, however, we shall always be dependent upon both, and we cannot say, even in this, that man is independent of the humbler life about him. Though in the past his draft for building materials has been upon natural supplies and not upon domesticated races, yet the attention that is now being given to forestry indicates the necessity of protecting and renewing the timber supplies in ways that amount almost to a domestication of our valuable woods.

Vegetable products as sources of heat and light. For ages wood has warmed the body of suffering man, cooked his food, and lifted the shadows from his soul. Not until after the opening of the twelfth century ^ did we begin to draw upon our coal deposits, and not until recent years have petroleum and natural gas ranked as heat- and light-producing materials.

But whether wood or coal, petroleum or gas, all reduce to the same ultimate basis, — vegetable growth and the carbon of the atmosphere harnessed by the green of the leaf operating under the energy of the sun.

None of these sources of heat is from cultivated plants, but the world supply of coal, and therefore of petroleum and gas, is limited, so that at no distant day we shall be obliged to secure our heat either from the sun direct, from wood growing in

1 It is supposed that the first charter for mining coal was granted by Henry III to Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1239.

6 DOMESTICA'IKI) ANIMALS AND PLANTS

cultivated forests, or from alcohol produced by the starchy grains and veget^ibles.

In early days the fat of animals or of plants served for illumination, but with petroleum they jxissed, probably forever, out of use, and it is more than likely that in respect to illumination we shall be independent of iioth animals and plants.

Dependence of man upon animal labor. To harness the animals and put them to work is one of the ])iimitive instincts of

Fig. I. 'I'lic laiiiiius I'cichcrun stalliuii Hrilliant After a painting by the great animal artist Rosa Bonheur

man, and a book would be recjuired even to outline the thousand ways in which man has been helped by his dumb companions, and in which his future happiness inevitably rests upon their labors.

It is the reindeer and the dog that make the jjolar regions habitable. It was the ox that traveled the plains and developed the Pacific coast in the days of '49. The last of the buffalo gave their flesh to feed the workmen that laid the Union Pacific — that first mechanical bond between tlie Ivist and the West.

THE DEPENDENCE OF MAN 7

It is the horse that has fougiit the wars of the world and won out human hberty. Besides this, lie lias broken our prairies, sown and harvested our grain, and delivered it to the markets of the world. He has carried messages of victory and of sorrow, and down to the time of Washington he constituted the fastest mode of communication known, if we except only the carrier pigeon.

If all the animals of the world should die in a single day, the disaster in respect to labor would hardly be second to that in

Fir,. 2. " 1 helped to build the Pikes Peak Railroad." The burro and

the pack mule afford the best means of transportation over difficult

mountain trails

respect to food. We might perhaps turn vegetarian, l5ut if man should lose his animal servants, then he himself would at once be reduced to a beast of burden in a thousand ways not commonly appreciated or even understood.

The camel and the pack mule carry civilization into regions which would otherwise remain wilderness, and just as the burro may be said to have built the Pikes Peak Railroad, so the elephant and the water buffalo each has done and is doing its distinctive work, without which man would have failed to develop his civilization at certain significant points.

Animals a means of recreation. Wholly aside from the sport of hunting, our animal population contributes not a little to the diversion and the recreation of man. The old-time tournament ^ and the later fox chase ministered to the pleasure sense of man, as does the modern horse race. There is no enjoyment more exhilarating than driving behind a spirited horse, unless it be that primitive pleasure of riding ; and the training of intelligent horses to the higher class of service is a business that rises to the rank of a fine art.