Fast eBooks

The horse, the camel,
and the common bull and cow are nowhere found in a wild state, and they
have all been domesticated from remote antiquity. The original of the
domestic fowl is still wild in India and the Malay Islands, and it was
domesticated in India and China before 1400 B.C. It was introduced into
Europe about 600 B.C. Several distinct breeds were known to the Romans
about the commencement of the Christian era, and they have since spread
all over the civilised world and been subjected to a vast amount of
conscious and unconscious selection, to many varieties of climate and to
differences of food; the result being seen in the wonderful diversity of
breeds which differ quite as remarkably as do the different races of
pigeons already described.
In the vegetable kingdom, most of the cereals--wheat, barley, etc.--are
unknown as truly wild plants; and the same is the case with many
vegetables, for De Candolle states that out of 157 useful cultivated
plants thirty-two are quite unknown in a wild state, and that forty more
are of doubtful origin.


Pages:
157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181