on human culture, we clearly perceive that we are now attaining a time
when the machinery of civilization is to depend in a much less degree
than of old on the help which these creatures give to man. Even fifty
years ago the horse was far more necessary to the work of our kind than
it is at present. Going back a hundred years, we perceive that the
population of the civilized world could not possibly have been
maintained, if by some disease all the horses had been swept away. Such
a calamity in the year 1800 would have led to the depopulation of almost
all the cities of the interior country, famine would have ravaged our
States, and the whole economic system of society would have had to be
reconstructed. Now the greater part of the work which of old had to be
done by horses, can, at a slight increase of cost, be effected by
mechanical engines. Ploughing, except on steep hillsides and in very
stony ground, can be cheaply and effectively done by steam. The same
agent can propel the harvesters and work the threshing machines. Even
farmers who till fields of no great extent find it desirable to do much
of their work by steam-engines, for the reason that fuel is less costly
than horse feed. An interesting instance to show how far mechanical
inventions have taken the place of horsed wagons in the work of
civilized communities was afforded by the horse distemper which swept
over the country in 1872. During the week or more in which this epidemic
was at the worst, the State of Massachusetts was practically unhorsed,
yet the greater part of the necessary business, that required to bring
provisions to the town, was effected by means of the railways. The same
incident shows, however, in another way, how absolutely necessary this
animal is, in certain parts of our work. For the great Boston fire,
which occurred at that time, was doubtless due to the fact that, owing
to the sickness of the horses, an effort was made to drag the engines by
hand-power, with the result that they came upon the ground so slowly as
to give the fire a chance to become an uncontrollable conflagration.
In the present state of our arts there is one great occupation which we
cannot conceive to be carried on without the services of horses. This is
war. It is hardly too much to say that all our highly elaborated
military system has depended for its development, as it does for its
maintenance, on the transportation value of horses. Much has been said
of late as to the use of bicycles as adjuncts to armies, and in a
certain limited way they will doubtless prove serviceable in future
campaigns; but no one who has had any experience of military duty, with
its work across tilled fields and through forests, can imagine a man on
a wheel rendering any very effective service except under peculiar
conditions. Moreover, no ordnance corps can do its appointed work in the
rear of a line of battle without sending its wagons across country and
over ground which no unhorsed vehicle could traverse.
The mark of the old utility of the animal in varied employment is
retained in our use of the term horse-power in measuring the energy of
engines. That gauge of strength of old determined what man could do in
the severest taxes upon the forces at his command. In attaining the
point where, owing to the possession of horses, he could use this
standard, he won a great way beyond the station of his ancestors, who
had but the strength of men at their command. Modern invention, by
giving us heat-engines, has made the way for an advance. In another
century, or even in another generation, the horse may, save for the uses
of war, be confined to the position of a luxury and an ornament.
THE FLOCKS AND HERDS: BEASTS FOR
BURDEN, FOOD, AND RAIMENT
Effect of this Group of Animals on Man.--First Subjugations.--Basis
of Domesticability.--Horned Cattle.--Wool-bearing Animals.--Sheep
and Goats.--Camels: their Limitation.--Elephants: Ancient History;
Distribution; Intelligence; Use in the Arts; Need of True
Domestication.--Pigs: their Peculiar Economic Value; Modern
Varieties; Mental Qualities.--Relation of the Development of
Domesticable Animals to the Time of Man's Appearance on the Earth.
It is not too much to say that the opportunity to go forward on the
paths of culture, at least the chance to advance any considerable
distance beyond the estate of primitive men, depends in a considerable
measure upon what the wilderness may offer in the way of domesticable
beasts of burden. Where such exist we find that the folk who dwell with
them in any land are almost certain to have made great advances. Where
the surrounding nature, however rich, denies this boon, we find that
men, however great their natural abilities may appear to be, exhibit a
retarded development. Thus in North America, where there was no
domesticable beast of burden, the Indians, though an able folk, remain
savages. So, too, in central and southern Africa, where the mammalian
life, though rich, affords no large forms which tolerate captivity, the
people have failed to attain any considerable culture. On the other
hand, in the great continent of the Old World, where the horse, the ass,
the buffalo, the camel, and the elephant existed in the primitive wilds,
men rose swiftly toward the civilized station.
[Illustration: Domesticated Buffaloes in Egypt]
The immediate effect arising from the possession of beasts of burden is
greatly to enlarge the scope and educative value of human labor. A
primitive agriculture, sufficient to provide for the needs of a people,
can be carried on by man's labor alone, though the resulting food-supply
has generally to be supplemented by the chase. Rarely, if ever, are the
products of the soil thus won sufficient in quantity to be made the
basis of any commerce. Such conveyance as is necessary among the people
who are served by their own hands alone, has to be accomplished by boat
transportation or by the backs of men. The immediate effect of using
beasts for burden is the introduction of some kind of plough, which
spares the labor of men in delving the ground, and the use of pack
animals, which, employed in the manner of caravans, greatly promotes the
extension of trade. A great range of secondary influences is found in
the development of the arts of war, by which people who have become
provided with pack or saddle animals are able to prevail over their
savage neighbors, and thus to extend the realm of a nascent
civilization. Yet another influence, arising from the domestication of
large beasts, arises from the fact that these creatures are important
storehouses of food; their flesh spares men the labor of the chase, and
so promotes those regularities of employment which lead men into
civilized ways of life. In fact, by making these creatures captive, men
unintentionally brought themselves out of their ancient savagery. They
were led into systematic and forethoughtful courses, and thus found a
training which they could in no other way have secured.
[Illustration: Cattle of India]
The first and simplest use made of the animals from which man derives
strength appears to have been brought about by the subjugation of wild
cattle--the bulls and buffaloes. Several wild varieties of the bovine
tribe were originally widely disseminated in Europe and Asia, and these
forms must have been frequent objects of chase by the ancient hunters.
Although in their adult state these animals were doubtless originally
intractable, the young were mild-mannered, and, as we can readily
conceive, must often have been led captive to the abodes of the
primitive people. As is common with all gregarious animals which have
long acknowledged the authority of their natural herdsmen, the dominant
males of their tribe, these creatures lent themselves to domestication.
Even the first generation of the captives reared by hand probably showed
a disposition to remain with their masters; and in a few generations
this native impulse might well have been so far developed that the
domestic herd was established, affording perhaps at first only flesh and
hides, and leading the people who made them captives to a nomadic
life--that constant search for fresh fields and pastures new which
characterizes people who are supported by their flocks and herds.
It is a curious fact that the kindred of the buffaloes and bisons
differ exceedingly in the measure of their domesticability. Thus, the
ordinary buffalo of Asia, though a dull brute, is very subjugable,
even in the literal sense, for he makes a tolerable beast for the
plough and bears the yoke with due patience. His African kinsman, on
the other hand, is perhaps the most unconquerable of all the large
wild animals. The late Sir Samuel Baker, in answer to my question as
to what wild form was the most to be feared in combat, unhesitatingly
answered, "The African buffalo, the bulls of which charge home upon
any aggressor with an immediate and determined fury, which often
enables them to kill the hunter after they have been shot through the
brain." Our American bison, though a much milder-spirited beast, seems
also to be essentially undomesticable for the reason that he cannot be
taught to subordinate his desires to the will of man. He can readily
be brought to the point where he will tolerate captivity; but if, when
engaged in ploughing, it occurs to him that he needs water, he will
straightway go in search of it, not in a vicious, but in a perfectly
obdurate manner. This quality of mind appears to be accountable for
the failure of the many experiments which have been made to
domesticate this interesting American form.
The limitations of the domesticating work, the fact that as between
two kindred species the one has been chosen by man and the other left,
indicate the truth--which is generally of much importance--that the
intellectual qualities of animals commonly differ more than their
frames. This is a part of the larger fact that with the advance in
organization the individuality, as regards the whole spiritual field
in persons and species alike, becomes greater. The culmination of the
tendency is seen in man, where, with bodies which do not vary much, we
have an almost infinite range in individual qualities.
This is perhaps a good place in which to make answer to the suggestion
that the domesticability of the animal species is in inverse
proportion to their native courage and independence of mind. The
reader will see how fallacious is this common notion if he will
consider the quality of the supremely domesticated creature, the dog.
There is probably no beast which has a larger share of natural courage
and of independent motive. When not under the control of their
masters, they have perhaps as free a contact with nature as any
creature in the world; the same thing may be said of the elephant,
which, next to the dog, lends himself most obediently to the
requirements of the master. Owing to the power of his huge body and to
the ease with which he wins his food, he is in his native wilds the
least dependent of land animals. Except from the assaults of man, he
has nothing to fear; yet when enslaved he at once surrenders himself
to his captors. In general, it may be said that the true gauge of
domesticability is the sympathetic motive, that strange outgoing
spirit which leads the mind to recognize the life about it and to
accept that life as a part of its own. In other words, the
domesticability of man is due to his willingness to enter into social
relations and rests on the same foundation that supports his
intercourse with the lower animals he has won to his use.
[Illustration: Indian Bullock and Water-Carrier]
It is probable that the first use which was made of beasts of burden,
in ways in which their strength became useful to man, was in packing
the tents and other valuables of their masters as they moved from
place to place. Even to this day in certain parts of the world bulls
and oxen serve for such purposes. In fact the nomadic life, a fashion
of society which is enforced wherever people subsist from their
cattle alone, leads inevitably to such use of the beasts. In the
southern Appalachian district of this country there remain traces of
this service rendered by bulls and oxen. These creatures, provided
with a kind of pack saddle, are occasionally used in conveying the
dried roots of the ginseng, beeswax, feathers, and the peltries which
are gathered by the inhabitants of remote districts, not accessible
to carriages, to the markets of the outer world. All the varieties of
ordinary cattle could be made to serve as burden-carriers, and they
doubtless would be continued to be used for saddle purposes in one
way or another but for the wide use of the horse, a creature very
much better adapted for carrying weight. The cloven foot of the bulls
and buffaloes gives a weakness to the extremities which will quickly
lead to disease in case they are forced to carry heavy loads such
as the horse or ass may safely bear.
[Illustration: Ploughing in Syria]
The help which our bovine servants afford us by the power which they
exert in traction, as in drawing ploughs, sleds, or wagons, appears to
have been first rendered long after their introduction to the ways of
man. The first of these uses in which the drawing strength of these
animals was made serviceable appears to have been in the work of
ploughing. In primitive days and with primitive tools, hand delving
was a sore task. The inventive genius who first contrived to overturn
the earth by means of the forked limb of a tree, shaped in the
semblance of a plough and drawn by oxen, began a great revolution in
the art of agriculture. To this unknown genius we may award a place
among the benefactors of mankind, quite as distinguished as that which
is occupied by the equally unknown inventors of the arts of making fire
or of smelting ores. After the experience with the strength of oxen had
been won from the work of ploughing, it was easy to pass to the other
grades of their employment, where they were made to draw carriages.
Next after the contribution which the kindred of the bulls, have made
by their strength, we must set that which has come from their milk.
Although this substance can be obtained in small quantities from
several other domesticated animals, the species of the genus Bos alone
have yielded it in sufficient quantities greatly to affect the
development of man. It is difficult to measure the importance of the
addition to the diet, both of savage and civilized peoples, which milk
affords. It is a fact well known to physiologists that in its simple
form this substance is a complete food, capable when taken alone of
sustaining life and insuring a full development of the body. It is
indeed a natural contrivance exactly adapted to afford those materials
which are required for the development and restoration of creatures
essentially akin to our own species. Those races which avail themselves
extensively of it in their dietary are the strongest and most enduring
the world has known. The Aryan folk are indeed characteristically
drinkers of milk and users of its products, cheese and butter. It may
well be that their power is in some measure due to this resource.
[Illustration: Winnowing Grain in Egypt]
In our horned cattle man won to domestication creatures which were
admirably suited to promote his advancement from savagery to
civilization. Indeed, the possession of these animals appears to have
been a prime condition of his advancement. With them, however, as with
the camel, there came little in the way of those sympathetic qualities
which have made it possible for our race to establish affectionate
relations with other captive forms. Long intercourse with man has, it
is true, somewhat diminished the wildness of these creatures, though
the males remain the most indomitably ferocious of all our
servants. The truth seems to be that the bovine animals have but
little intellectual capacity, and it has in no wise served the
purposes of man to develop such powers of mind as they have. We have
ever been given to asking little of them, save docility. This we have
in a high measure won with our milch cows, which of all our
domesticated creatures are perhaps the most absolutely submissive; the
more highly developed of them being little more than passive producers
of milk, almost without a trace of instincts or emotions except such
as pertain to reproduction and to feeding. It is a noteworthy fact
that in all the great literature of anecdote concerning our
domesticated animals, there is hardly a trace of stories which tend to
show the existence of sagacity in our common cattle.
It is evident that the variability of our domesticated bovines, as far
as their bodies are concerned, is very great. Between the ancient
aurochs and the more highly cultivated of its descendants, the
difference is as great as that which separates any other of our captive
animals from their wild ancestors. In size, shape, in flesh-and
milk-giving qualities, the departure from the old form of the wilderness
is remarkable. Moreover, at the present time these diverse breeds of
horned cattle are rapidly being multiplied, the distinctive forms
probably being twice as numerous as they were at the beginning of the
present century. The process of selection has led to some very wide
diversifications of the body. The horns, which in the wild state are
invariably well developed, and which in the cattle of our Western plains
attain very great size, have in certain breeds altogether disappeared,
and in their place there sometimes comes a remarkable crest of bony
matter which does not project beyond the skin which covers the head. If
such differences occurred in the wild state, they would be regarded as
separating the two types of animals widely from each other.
[Illustration: Egyptian Sheep]
In treating the wool-bearing animals along with beasts of burden, we
make a somewhat fanciful classification which yet is not quite without
reason. By long training man has brought these species to the state
where their covering of wool or hair, once a coating only sufficient to
afford protection from the weather, has become a very serious load. In
certain of our highly developed varieties the annual coat is so far
increased that the creature loses a large part of its bulk after the
shearer has done his work. Each year's fleece often amounts in weight
to eight to twelve pounds, and in its lifetime the animal may yield a
mass of wool far exceeding its weight of flesh and bones in any time
of its life. When the fleece is mature the animal is often burdened
with a load about as heavy in proportion to his size as is a horse by
the weight of its rider and accoutrements.
As a flesh producer, particularly in sterile fields, sheep are more
valuable than our horned cattle. They mature more rapidly, attaining
their adult size and reproducing their kind in less than two years, so
that in many parts of the world it is possible to obtain a larger
quantity of flesh from poor pasturages with sheep than with any other
of our domesticated animals. Their principal value, however, has been
from the means they afforded whereby men in high latitudes have
obtained warm clothing. Before the domestication of these creatures,
peoples who had to endure the winter of high latitudes were forced to
rely upon hides for covering--a form of clothing which is clumsy,
uncleanly, and which the chase could not supply in any considerable
quantity. Owing to its peculiar structure, the hair of the sheep makes
the strongest and warmest covering, when rendered into cloth, which has
ever been devised for the use of man. The value of this contribution is
directly related to the conditions of climate. In the intertropical
regions the sheep plays no part of importance. In high latitudes it is
of the utmost value to man. No other of our domesticated creatures,
except the camel, is so specially adapted to the needs which
peculiarities of climate impose upon their possessors.
[Illustration: Bedouin Goat-Herd--Palestine]
The relations of the goat to mankind are in certain ways peculiar. The
creature has long been subjugated, probably having come into the human
family before the dawn of history. It has been almost as widely
disseminated, among barbarian and civilized peoples alike, as the
sheep. It readily cleaves to the household, and exhibits much more
intelligence than the other members of our flocks and herds. It yields
good milk, the flesh is edible, though in the old animals not savory,
and the hair can be made to vary in a larger measure than any of our
animals which are shorn. Yet this creature has never obtained the place
in relation to man to which it seems entitled. Only here and there is
it kept in considerable numbers or made the basis of extensive
industries. The reason for this seems to be that these animals cannot
readily be kept in flocks in the manner of sheep. They are only partly
gregarious, and tend to stray from the owner's keeping. There seems
reason also to believe that they cannot easily be made to vary in other
characteristics except their hairy covering at the will of the breeder,
and so varieties cannot be formed, as is the case with sheep, to suit
each peculiarity of soil and climate. Thus in Europe, where it would be
easy to name a score of distinct breeds of sheep, each peculiarly well
suited to the conditions of the country where it had been developed,
the goats are singularly alike. The original stock of these creatures
appears to have been adapted to feeding on the scant herbage which
develops in rocky and mountainous countries. They do not seem able to
make the perfect use of the resources of a pasture which sheep do.
These inherited peculiarities in feeding enable them to pick up a
subsistence where they may range over a considerable territory, even
where it seems to afford no forms of food for the hungriest animal.
Thus in that part of the city of New York known as "Shanty town," goats
may be seen in fairly good condition, although the sole source of food,
besides a few stray weeds, appears to be the paste of the paper
advertisements which they pick from the rocks and fences.
Although goats appear to be characterized by invariable bodies, our
sheep are, in physical characteristics, among the most flexible of our
domesticated animals. They may by selection readily and rapidly be made
to vary as regards the character of their wool, the size and proportion
of their muscles, and the quantity and placing of the fat. In all these
features they may be fairly blown to and fro by the wind of favor.
Between the meagre-bodied merino, with its skeleton-like frame and
heavily wrinkled skin bearing a vast burden of long wool, and the heavy
Hampshire-downs or South-downs, there is really an immense difference in
bodily quality; yet these variations represent only a century or two of
careful experiment on the part of the breeders. It seems not improbable
that in the present state of this developing art it would be possible,
in a hundred years, to reverse the conditions of these two varieties.
Sheep and goats, like the other herbivorous species which are the
common tenants of our fields and forests, belong to the great class of
dull-witted mammals in which the intellectual processes appear to be
almost altogether limited to ancient and simple emotions, such as are
inspired by fear or hunger. They are characterized by little
individuality of mind, and although the needs of men have not led to
any experiment in developing their wits, as in the case of dogs, there
is no reason to believe that they afford much foundation for such
essays. The present rapid variations in the physical characteristics of
our sheep which are induced by the breeder's skill, make it evident
that we are far from having attained the maximum profit from these
creatures. The goats also give promise, when selective work is
carefully done upon them, of giving much more than they now afford to
the uses of mankind; but from neither of these forms is there reason to
hope, at least on our present lines of experiment, for any considerable
gain in the intellectual qualities.
[Illustration: The Great Caravan Road--Central Asia]