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Answer 3:
When we look to the individuals of the same variety or
subvariety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of
the first points which strikes us is that they generally
differ much more from each other than do the individuals of
any one species or variety in a state of nature.
When we reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and
animals which have been cultivated and which have varied
during all ages under the most different climates and
treatment, I think we are driven to conclude that this
greater variability is simply due to our domestic productions
having been raised under conditions of life not so uniform as
and somewhat different from those to which the parent species
have been exposed under nature.
There is also I think some probability in the view
propounded by Andrew Knight that this variability may be
partly connected with excess of
food. |