The traditional classificatory rubrics of western science and everyday discourse are becoming less suitable as we learn more about the range of alternative possibilities in the relations between man and the living world around him. Concepts such as "domestication", "cultigen", "ornamental", "agriculture", "horticulture", or "irrigation" refer to bundles of cultural, biological, and historical variables which can now be seen to occur in various combinations in different places and different periods, combinations which are inadequately classified by these and many similar terms. It is probably time to abandon the broader rubrics in order to concentrate on defining and analysing more specific variables, examining their changing associations in different instances and their functional and historical interrelations with features from other spheres such as sociological, economic, ecological, and biological ones.
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