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Subtitle not present 1859 1860 1861 Character of Domestic Varieties; difficulty of distinguishing between Varieties and Species; origin of Domestic Varieties from one or more Species. 1866
single variety should
have been
be
turned loose in its new home. Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not
improbable
improbable,
that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil (in which case, however, some effect would have to be attributed to the
definite
definite
direct
action of the poor soil), that they
would,
would
to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock. Whether or not the experiment would succeed, is not of great importance for our line of argument; for by the experiment itself the conditions of life are changed. If it could be shown that our domestic varieties manifested a strong tendency to reversion, — that is, to lose their acquired characters, whilst kept under
the same
unchanged
conditions, and whilst kept in a considerable body, so that free intercrossing might check, by blending together, any slight deviations
in their
of
structure, in such case, I grant that we could deduce nothing from domestic varieties in regard to species. But there is not a shadow of evidence in favour of this view: to assert that we could not breed our cart and race-horses, long and short-horned cattle, and poultry of various breeds, and esculent vegetables, for an
unlimited
almost infinite
number of generations, would be opposed to all experience. I may add,
that,
that
when under nature the conditions of life do change, variations and reversions of character probably do occur; but natural selection, as will hereafter be explained, will determine how far the new characters thus arising shall be preserved.
When we look to the hereditary varieties or races of our domestic animals and plants, and compare them with
species
species
closely allied
species,
together,
we generally perceive in each domestic race, as already remarked, less uniformity of character than in true species. Domestic races
often
of the