ot supply the world's ever increasing
population with food, clothing and shelter. Complying with known
conditions of natural reciprocity, however, the animal and vegetable
kingdoms submit to whatever modifications become necessary in order to
supply the needs of the human family.

_Nature's Forces Operate Blindly._ Moved, therefore, partly by necessity
and partly by curiosity, the material world has been and is being
continually modified by the ingenuity of man. Undirected, however,
Nature's forces act blindly; hence, produce mainly such qualities in
organic life as endurance, or adaptation to local soil and climatic
conditions. In the animal and vegetable kingdoms the universal demand of
Nature is to perpetuate their species--"to produce after their own
kind." In accordance with this law the humblest plant or animal is
compelled to maintain a perpetual warfare against its fellows for means
of subsistence.

This competition for nourishment is usually so sharp and continuous that
mere existence or endurance rather than excellence or quality, seems to
be the end and aim of natural law. Hence, the strong survive and the
weak perish.

_Beginnings of Agriculture._ Here agriculture begins. By relieving
plants of this intense competition by means of tillage, and by selecting
the most promising for domestication, they are enabled to use all their
energy for the development of those qualities which add to their
intrinsic value, instead of expending it in the struggle for existence.
Given, thus, free access to the soil and sunshine, with needful
nourishment supplied and their fungous or parasitical enemies destroyed,
the domesticated plants yield trustful obedience to the protecting hand
of the husbandman. Freed altogether from the necessity of
self-protection they become prolific and pour into the world's bread
basket in marvelous abundance the seeds--a single one of which would
suffice to answer Nature's law for the propagation of species. This
surplus of yield for which each plant has need of but a single seed, and
more especially this improvement of quality for which the plant has no
concern, is Nature's reciprocal reward for having given her children
gratuitously that protection which otherwise they would have had to
provide for themselves.

Nor is animal life less susceptible of improvement. Between the animal
wild and the animal domesticated--that is whether Nature-bred or
man-bred--the range in quality is as marked a