§ 352. Under this head may be grouped various facts which, in another way, tell the same tale as those contained in the last chapter. The evidence there put together went to show that increased cost of self-maintenance entailed decreased power of propagation. The evidence to be set down here, will go to show that power of propagation is augmented by making self-maintenance unusually easy. For into this may be translated the effect of abundant food.

To put the proposition more specifically—we have seen that after individual growth, development, and daily consumption, have been provided for, the surplus nutriment measures the rate of multiplication. This surplus may be raised in amount by such changes in the environment as bring a larger supply of the materials or forces on which both parental life and the lives of offspring depend. Be there, or be there not, any expenditure, a higher nutrition will make possible a greater propagation. We may expect this to hold both of agamogenesis and of gamogenesis; and we shall find that it does so.

§ 353. On multiaxial plants, the primary effect of surplus nutriment is a production of large and numerous leaf-shoots. How this asexual multiplication results from excessive nutrition, is well shown when the leading axis, or a chief branch, is broken off towards its extremity. The axillary buds below the breakage quickly swell and burst into lateral shoots, which often put forth secondary shoots: two generations of agamic individuals arise where there probably would have been none but for the local abundance of sap, no longer drawn off. In like manner the abnormal agamogenesis which we have in proliferous flowers, is habitually accompanied by a general luxuriance, implying an unusual plethora.

No less conclusive is the evidence furnished by agamogenesis in animals. Sir John Dalyell, speaking of Hydra tuba, and of the period before strobilization commences, says—“It is singular how much propagation is promoted by abundant sustenance.” This Polype goes on budding out young polypes from its sides, with a rapidity proportionate to the supply of materials. So, too, is it with the agamic reproduction of the Aphis. As cited by Professor Huxley, Kyber “states that he raised viviparous broods of both this species (Aphis Dianthi) and A. Rosæ for four consecutive years, without any intervention of males or oviparous females, and that the energy of the power of agamic reproduction was at the end of that period undiminished. The rapidity of the agamic proliferation throughout the whole period was directly proportional to the amount of warmth and food supplied.”

In these cases the relation is not appreciably complicated by expenditure. The parent having reached its limit of growth, the absorbed food goes to asexual multiplication: scarcely any being deducted for the maintenance of parental life.

§ 354. The sexual multiplication of organisms under changed conditions, undergoes variations conforming to a parallel law. Cultivated plants and domesticated animals yield us proof of this.

Facts showing that in cultivated plants sexual genesis increases with nutrition, are obscured by facts showing that a less rapid asexual genesis, and an incipient sexual genesis, accompany the fall from a high to a moderate nutrition. The confounding of these two relations has led to mistaken inferences. When treating of Genesis inductively, we reached the generalization that “the products of a fertilized germ go on accumulating by simple growth, so long as the forces whence growth results are greatly in excess of the antagonist forces; but that when diminution of the one set of forces, or increase of the other, causes a considerable decline in this excess, and an approach towards equilibrium, fertilized germs are again produced.” (§ 78.) It was pointed out that this holds of organisms which multiply by heterogenesis, as well as those which multiply by homogenesis. And plants were referred to as illustrating, both generally and locally, the decline of agamic multiplication and commencement of gamic multiplication, along with a lessening rate of nutrition. Now the many cases which are given of fruitfulness caused in trees by depletion, are really cases of this change from agamogenesis to gamogenesis; and simply go to prove that what would naturally arise when decreased peripheral growth had followed increased size, may be brought about artificially by diminishing the supply of materials for growth. Cramping its roots in a pot, or cutting them, or ringing its branches, will make a tree bear very early: bringing about a premature establishment of that relative innutrition which would have spontaneously arisen in course of time. Such facts by no means show that in plants sexual genesis increases as nutrition diminishes. When it has once set in, sexual genesis is scanty or imperfect unless nutrition is good. Though the starved plant may blossom, yet many of its blossoms will fail; and such seeds as it produces will be ill-furnished with those enveloping structures and that store of albumen, &c., needed to give good chances of successful germination—the number of surviving offspring will be diminished. Were it otherwise, the manuring of fields which are to bear seed-crops, would be not simply useless but injurious. Were it otherwise, dunging the roots of a fruit-tree would in all cases be impolitic; instead of being impolitic only where the growth of sexless axes is still luxuriant. Were it otherwise, a tree which has borne a heavy crop should, by the consequent depletion, be led to bear a still heavier crop next year; whereas it is apt to be wholly or partially barren next year—has to recover a state of tolerably-high nutrition before its sexual genesis again becomes large.

But the best illustrations are yielded by animals—those animals at least in which we have, besides an increased supply of nutriment, a diminished expenditure. Two classes of comparisons, alike in their implications, may be made—comparisons between tame and wild animals of the same species or genus, and comparisons between tame animals of the same species differently treated.

To begin with Birds, let us first contrast the farm-yard Gallinaceæ with their kindred of the fields and woods. Notwithstanding their greater size, which, other things equal, should be accompanied by smaller fertility, the domesticated kinds have more numerous offspring than the wild kinds. A Turkey has a dozen in a brood, while a Pheasant has from 6 to 10. Twice or thrice in a season, a Hen rears as many chickens as a Partridge rears once in a season. Anserine birds show us parallel differences. The Tame Goose sits on 13 to 18 eggs and often sits a second time; but the Wild Goose sits on 5, 6, or 7, and these are noted as considerably smaller. It is the same with Ducks. The domesticated variety lays and hatches twice as many eggs as the wild variety. And the like holds of Pigeons. After remarking of the Columba livia that “in spring when they have plenty of corn to pick from the newly-sown fields, they begin to get fat and pair; and again in harvest, when the corn is cut down,” Macgillivray goes on to say that “the same pair when tamed generally breed four times” in the year. That between different poultry-yards inequalities of fertility are caused by inequalities in the supplies of food, is a familiar truth. High feeding shows its effects not only in the continuous laying, but also in the sizes of the eggs. Among directions given for obtaining eggs from pullets late in the year, it is especially insisted on that they shall have a generous diet. Respecting Pigeons Macgillivray writes:—“that their breeding depends much on their having plenty of food to fatten them, seems, I think, evident from the circumstance that, when tamed, which they easily are, they are observed to breed in every month of the year. I do not mean that the same pair will breed every month; but some in the flock, if well fed, will breed at any season.” There may be added a fact of like meaning which partially-domesticated birds yield. The Sparrow is one of the Finch tribe that has taken to the neighbourhood of houses; and by its boldness secures food not available to its congeners. The result is that it has several broods in a season, while its field-haunting kindred have none of them more than two broods, and some have only one.

Equally clear proof that abundant nutriment raises the rate of multiplication, occurs among Mammals. Compare the litters of the Dog with the litters of the Wolf and the Fox. Whereas those of the one range in number from 6 to 14, those of the others contain respectively 5 or 6 or occasionally 7, and 4 or 5 or rarely 6. Again, the Wild Cat has 4 or 5 kittens; but the tame Cat has 5 or 6 kittens 2 or 3 times a-year. So, too, is it with the Weasel tribe. The Stoat has 5 young ones once a-year. The Ferret has 2 litters yearly, each containing from 6 to 9; and this notwithstanding that it is the larger of the two. Perhaps the most striking contrast is that between the wild and tame varieties of the Pig. While the one produces, according to its age, from 4 to 8 or 10 young ones once a year, the other produces sometimes as many as 17 in a litter; or, in other cases, will bring up 5 litters of 10 each in two years—a rate of reproduction which is unparalleled in animals of as large a size.[61] And let us not omit to note that this excessive fertility occurs where there is the greatest inactivity—where there is plenty to eat and nothing to do. There is no less distinct evidence that among domesticated Mammals themselves, the well-fed individuals are more prolific than the ill-fed individuals. On the high and comparatively-infertile Cotswolds, it is unusual for ewes to have twins; but they very commonly have twins in the adjacent rich valley of the Severn. Similarly, among the barren hills of the west of Scotland, two lambs will be borne by about one ewe in twenty; whereas in England, something like one ewe in three will bear two lambs. Nay, in rich pastures, twins are more frequent than single births; and it occasionally happens that, after a genial autumn and consequent good grazing, a flock of ewes will next spring yield double their number of lambs—the triplets balancing the uniparæ. So direct is this relation, that I have heard a farmer assert his ability to foretell, from the high, medium, or low, condition of an ewe in the autumn, whether she will next spring bear two, or one, or none.

§ 355. An objection must here be met. Many facts may be brought to prove that fatness is not accompanied by fertility but by barrenness; and the inference drawn is that high feeding is unfavourable to genesis. The premiss may be admitted while the conclusion is denied.

There is a distinction between what may be called normal plethora, and an abnormal plethora, liable to be confounded with it. The one is a mark of constitutional wealth; but the other is a mark of constitutional poverty. Normal plethora is a superfluity of materials both for the building up of tissue and the evolution of force; and this is the plethora which we have found to be associated with unusual fecundity. Abnormal plethora which, as truly alleged, is accompanied by infecundity, is a superfluity of force-evolving materials joined with either a positive or a relative deficiency of tissue-forming materials: the increased bulk indicating this state, being really the bulk of so much inert or dead matter. Note, first, a few of the facts which show us that obesity implies physiological impoverishment.

Neither in brutes nor men does it ordinarily occur either in youth or in that early maturity during which the vigour is the greatest and the digestion the best: it does not habitually accompany the highest power of taking up nutritive materials. When fatness arises in the prime of life, whether from peculiarity of food or other circumstance, it is not the sign of an increased total vitality. On the contrary, if great muscular action has to be gone through, the fat must be got rid of; either, as in a man, by training, or as in a horse that has grown bulky while out at grass, by putting him on such more nutritive diet as oats. The frequency of senile fatness, both in domesticated creatures and in ourselves, has a similar implication. Whether we consider the smaller ability of those who display it to withstand large demands on their powers, or whether we consider the comparatively-inferior digestion common among them, we see that the increased size indicates, not an abundance of materials which the organism requires, but an abundance of materials which it does not require. Of like meaning is the fact that women who have had several children, and animals after they have gone on bearing young for some time, frequently become fat; and lose their fecundity as they do this. In such cases the fatness is not to be taken as the cause of the infecundity; but the constitutional exhaustion which the previous production of offspring has left, shows itself at once in the failing fecundity and the commencing fatness. There is yet another kind of evidence. Obesity not uncommonly sets in after the system has been subject to debilitating influences. Often a serious illness is followed by a corpulence to which there was previously no tendency. And the prolonged administration of mercury, constitutionally injurious as it is, sometimes produces a like effect.

Closer inquiry verifies the conclusion to which these facts point. The microscope shows that along with the increase of bulk common in advanced life, there goes on what is called “fatty degeneration:” oil-globules are deposited where there should be particles of flesh—or rather, we may say, the hydrocarbonaceous molecules locally produced by decomposition of the nitrogenous molecules, have not been replaced by other nitrogenous molecules, as they should have been. This fatty degeneration is, indeed, a kind of local death. For so regarding it we have not simply the reason that an active substance has its place occupied by an inert substance; but we have the further reason that the flesh of dead bodies, under certain conditions, is transformed into a fatty matter called adipocere.

The infertility that accompanies fatness in domestic animals has, however, other causes than that declining constitutional vigour which the fatness commonly indicates. Being artificially fed, these animals cannot always obtain what their systems need. That which is given to them is given expressly because of its fattening quality. And since the capacity of the digestive apparatus remains the same, the absorption of fat-producing materials in excess, implies defect in the absorption of materials from which the tissues are formed, and out of which young ones are built up. Moreover, this special feeding with a view to rapid and early fattening, continued as it is through generations, and accompanied as it is by a selection of individuals and varieties which fatten most readily, tends to establish a modified constitution, more fitted for producing fat and correspondingly-less fitted for producing flesh—a constitution which, from this relatively-deficient absorption of nitrogenous matters, is likely to become infertile; as, indeed, these varieties often do become. Hence, no conclusions respecting the effects of high nutrition, properly so-called, can be drawn from cases of this kind. The cases are, in truth, of a kind which could not exist but for human agency. Under natural conditions no animal would diet itself in the way required to produce such results. And if it did its race would quickly disappear.[62]

There is yet another mode in which accumulation of fat diminishes fertility. Even supposing it unaccompanied by a smaller absorption of nitrogenous materials, it is still a cause of lessening the surplus of nitrogenous materials. For the repair of the motor tissues becomes more costly. Fat stored-up is weight to be carried. A creature loaded with inert matter must, other things equal, consume a greater amount of tissue-forming substances for keeping its locomotive apparatus in order; and thus expending more for self-maintenance can expend less for race-maintenance. Abnormal plethora is thus antagonistic to reproduction in a double way. It ordinarily implies a smaller absorption of tissue-forming matters, and an increased demand on the diminished supply. Hence fertility decreases in a geometrical progression.

The counter-conclusion drawn from facts of this class is, then, due to a misconception of their nature—a misconception arising partly from the circumstance that the increase of bulk produced by fat is somewhat like the increase of bulk which growth of tissues causes, and partly from the circumstance that abundance of good food normally produces a certain quantity of fat, which, within narrow limits, is a valuable store of force-evolving material. When, however, we limit the phrase high nutrition to its proper meaning—an abundance of, and due proportion among, all the substances which the organism needs—we find that, other things equal, fertility always increases as nutrition increases. And we see that these apparently-exceptional cases, are cases which really show us the same thing; since they are cases of relative innutrition.

[Note.—By a strange oversight when writing this chapter in the first edition—an oversight I was on the eve of repeating in this present edition—I omitted to bring forward the familiar and all-important evidence furnished by the variations of genesis which ordinarily accompany the alternations of the seasons. These variations, in multitudinous creatures of all types, show unmistakably that reproduction begins at those times of the year when greater warmth and larger supplies of food render maintenance of individual life relatively easy, and when there is therefore a surplus available for producing new individuals. Conversely, along with the decrease of heat and the relative deficiency of food which make it comparatively difficult in winter to maintain individual life, there ceases to be the power of producing other lives: the reproductive organs become quiescent and often dwindle. With this general fact is associated a special fact. Though among wild animals—birds, mammals, and others—breeding ceases when Nature no longer supplies abundant food and warmth; in domesticated mammals and birds, artificially supplied with food and warmth, the breeding season is greatly extended and often made continuous, as, under the same conditions, it is in Man himself.

Evidence yielded by the vegetal world is less conspicuous, for the reason that the cold which arrests reproductive activity also arrests individual activity: growth of the individual and multiplication of the race vary simultaneously with variations in the seasons. Still there are some familiar facts showing that the external conditions which favour nutrition also bring about reproduction. Early in the year we are supplied with flowers from regions warmer than our own, and by and by there come to our markets fruits and vegetables from the south of France, the Channel Islands, and even from the Scilly Isles, which are much in advance of those furnished by the gardens of our own colder regions: reproduction commences earlier where the light and heat furthering nutrition are greater. And then there is a kindred meaning in the not unfrequent occurrence of a second flowering and even of a second fruiting in warm, bright and prolonged autumns. Here the abnormal re-commencement of reproduction is determined by an abnormal increase of nutrition.]