SELECTION IN GRAIN-GROWING. 357 



4. The superior vigor of this grain is transmissible in different 

 degrees to its progeny. 



5. By repeated careful selection the superiority is accumulated. 



6. The improvement, which is at first rapid, gradually, after a long 

 series of years, is diminished in amount, and eventually so far ar- 

 rested that practically a limit to improvement in the desired quality 

 is reached. 



7. By still continuing to select, the improvement is maintained, 

 and practically a fixed type is the result. 



Thin Seeding with Selection. Let us discuss what is possible 

 by a combination of thin seeding with selection. In order to do this, 

 we must look at the present modes of cultivating the cereals. Con- 

 fining ourselves for the moment to wheat alone, we know that from 

 two to five bushels per acre are sown. The bushel of ordinary wheat 

 contains 700,000 grains and more, and, taking two bushels per acre as 

 the quantity sown, Ave have about 1,500,000 grains per acre. Major 

 Hallett has counted at harvest the number of ears upon a quarter of 

 an acre of wheat (drilled 20th of November with one and a half bushel 

 of seed per acre, and which proved an exceptionally heavy crop of 

 fifty-six bushels per acre), and the number of ears found was 934,120 

 per acre, or not so many ears as the grains sown. Here it is evident, 

 from the number of grains sown, that either the natural powers of till- 

 ering could not have been exercised, or that the greater part of the 

 seed must have been sown uselessly. Doubtless some of the grains 

 did produce more than one ear, but this only makes the case still 

 worse for the remainder. Not only was the number of ears below 

 that of the grains sown, but each ear was but the stunted survivor of 

 a struggle for existence. A high authority has said that, if a square 

 yard of thickly-sown wheat be counted in spring, and the supposed 

 number of ears then recorded, it would be found that ninety per cent 

 of them would be found missing at harvest. Beyond all question, in 

 thickly-sown wheat, very many of what appear as stems in the spring 

 die away before harvest, and have thus grown not only uselessly, but 

 in the struggle for existence have starved and stunted those which ulti- 

 mately came to ears. 



In ordinary English crops the number of ears produced per acre 

 being taken as about 1,000,000, and the crop as 34 bushels, we have, 

 at 700,000 grains per bushel, 23,800,000 grains per acre, or an average 

 per ear of only 23 to 24 grains ; and, if more than 1,000,000 ears per 

 acre be claimed, it must be at the expense of their contents. Five im- 

 perial pints (= 6*1 American measure) of wheat per acre planted in 

 September, 12 inches X 12 inches, gave 1,001,880 ears per acre, or 67,760 

 ears in excess of those produced on the other side of the hedge from 

 l bushel, or more than thirteen times the seed. Again, 6*1 pints 

 (American measure) of wheat planted 12 inches X 12 inches, October 

 17th, gave 958,320 ears per acre ; and planted similarly, October 4th, 



