The Wanderings of Plants and Animals From Their First Home (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Hehn, Victor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1330572521 ISBN 13: 9781330572528

Verlag: Forgotten Books, 2018

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Reseña del editor:

Excerpt from The Wanderings of Plants and Animals From Their First Home

That the animal and vegetable worlds - that is to say, the whole physiognomy of life, labour, and landscape in a country - may, in the course of centuries, be changed under the hand of Man is an experimental fact that, especially since the discovery of America, cannot be contradicted. During the, last three centuries - in a purely historical period, since the invention of printing, and in full view of the civilized world - the native animals and plants in newly discovered islands and in the colonized countries of the Western Hemisphere have been sup planted by those of europe, or by a flora and fauna collected from all parts of the globe. In St. Helena, for instance, the aboriginal wild vegetation has retreated to the mountains in the interior of the island, driven in by an advancing circle of novel plants which came over the ocean in the train of Europeans. In the pampas of Buenos Ayres, for miles together, we meet with scarcely one indigenous plant; they have all succumbed to the usurpation of plants introduced from Europe.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Reseña del editor:

Excerpt from The Wanderings of Plants and Animals From Their First Home

The history of our Domestic Animals and Cultivated Plants is a subject of absorbing interest to the educated man, and (if he knew it) to the uneducated man too. It forms no small, part of the history of Man himself and his slow advance to civilization.

We cannot afford to kick down the ladders we have climbed by. If our venerable friend the "lowing Steer" has now "doffed the weary yoke" for good and all, and even his quite recent successor Dobbin bids fair to be driven off the field by a mechanical substitute, "the divel's oan team;" yet, some three or four thousand years ago, with our first wooden plough just invented, and the steam-plough still a long way ahead, what could we have done without "the ox and the ass to ear the ground"?

And we have not quite done with our old friends yet; not till we have learnt to relish milk and beef manufactured without the aid of milkmaid or butcher; not till the invalid, advised to "take horse-exercise," consents to take it alongside Master Tom in the day-nursery. And not then. The Iron Horse was to have exterminated his prototype of flesh and blood, but Dobbin seems inclined to stay; nay, if we except the plough-horse and the stager, he is in greater request than ever.

And who can state the sum of our obligations to the sheep, the pig, the camel, the dog, and even poor mousing Puss? Or why should Chanticleer and his family, with other bipeds of the poultry-yard, be forgotten? And much the same may be said of Cultivated Plants - the grains, the potherbs, garden-flowers, fruit-trees, timber, and even ornamental trees.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Forgotten Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1330572521
• ISBN 13: 9781330572528
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 524