"When we visit a vegetable garden or see fresh, attractive fruits offered in market or inspect the wonders shown upon the tables of county fairs and agricultural shows, we seldom realize how truly they are all the work of man.... "One of the most wonderful illustrations of what man can do in changing nature is seen in the case of the peach. Some time, long ago, perhaps in Western Asia, grew a wild tree which bore fruits, at the center of which were the hardest of hard pits, containing the bitterest of kernels; over this hard stone was a thin layer of flesh--bitter, stringy, with almost no juice, and which, as it ripened, separated, exposing to view the contained seed; such was nature's gift. Man taking it found that it contained two parts which might by proper treatment be made of use for food--the thin external pulp and the bitter inner pit. He has improved both. Today we eat the luscious peaches with their thick, soft, richly-flavored juicy flesh--they are _one_ product of man's patient ingenuity. Or we take the soft shelled almond with its sweet kernel; it is the old pit improved and changed by man: in the almond, as it is raised at present, we care nothing for the pulp and it has almost vanished. The peach and almond are the same in nature; the differences they now betray are due to man."[3] Many of the grains were known and grown by prehistoric man. Millet, wheat and barley were known in earliest recorded times in Egypt; these grains were also cultivated before historic times. Oats and rye were early plant products. Corn was native to America and unknown to the antiquity of the Old World. Several of our vegetables, such as the radish, carrot, turnip, beet and onion, were early grown for food. The lemon, orange, fig and olive were all native to Asia. Many flowers are mentioned by early writers and they too were unquestionably carefully tended in remote times. It is a subject for pleasant investigation to find out where flowers, cultivated in some countries, grow wild in others. DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS. Desiring to provide food for time of want, primitive man learned to keep a wounded animal instead of at once killing it. Quite naturally it might come about that such a creature would grow less wild and become a pet. Realizing the advantage of confining animals, enclosures were probably thrown around herds of goats, deer or sheep. Ingenious man soon seized upon these half tamed beasts to help him in his work. Their use being proven, he would not rest until he had tamed them to his hand. The dog was the first dumb friend of men, accompanying them upon the hunt and aiding in bringing game to bay. The oldest friend, the dog, has also proven the most faithful of the animal kingdom. When history dawned, the dog, cow, sheep, goat, donkey, and pig were already domesticated. The horse was less commonly known in remote times. All these animals were originally small and not to be compared with their present day descendants.