POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



859 



listhenes found at Babylon and sent to Aris- 

 totle a sei-ies of observations going back to 

 the earlier date of 1903 b. c. As yet, how- 

 ever, the Chaldean observations with which 

 we are acquainted are reduced to the ac- 

 count of three eclipses of the moon that 

 took place about 719 b. c. Hopes were 

 entertained, when the discoveries of cunei- 

 form tablets were made in the ruins of 

 Babylonia and Nineveh, that trustworthy 

 information of the real condition of astro- 

 nomical science among the Chaldeans might 

 be gathered from them ; but it was some 

 time before anything of this kind was real- 

 ized. Messrs. Oppert and Sayce, it is true, 

 found a few astronomical documents in the 

 library of a king of Assyria, but they con- 

 tained more astrology than astronomy, and 

 were, moreover, too badly preserved to be 

 of much use. Quite recently the Assyrio- 

 logue, Father Strassmeycr, of the Society of 

 Jesus, has found a few documents relative 

 to astronomy in the Spartoli collection of 

 the British Museum; and these have been 

 carefully examined by Father Epping. They 

 indicate that the Chaldeans had considerable 

 knowledge of astronomy. Besides calculat- 

 ing the time of the new moon, and taking 

 account of the thirds in their observations, 

 they followed the courses of the planets, 

 were acquainted with the retrograde move- 

 ment of Mars, and referred the positions of 

 the planets to those of the stars. If other 

 results similar to these are at all extensively 

 obtained from the immense amount of study 

 yet to be made of the tablets, astronomers 

 may hope to acquire materials of extreme 

 value for the verification of their tables and 

 the study of the system of the world. 



Pedigree Selection in Food-Plants. 



Major Ilallett, in commending before the 

 Brighton Health Congress his "pedigree 

 system" for the improvement of food- 

 plants, takes notice of the immensely greater 

 advantages in favor of systematic improve- 

 ment afforded by plants over animals. A 

 cow or ewe, he- says, "produces at birth 

 one (or two) only ; a single grain of wheat 

 has produced a plaDt the ears of which con- 

 tained 8,000 grains, all capable of repro- 

 duction. Now, we can plant all of these, 

 and of the resultant 8,000 plants reserve 

 only the best one of all, to perpetuate the 



race, rejecting every other." The principle 

 of Major Haliett's system consists in apply- 

 ing this rule, of reproducing only the best 

 plants of each lot in successive years. " Can 

 anything approaching such a choice as this," 

 he says, " be afforded any breeder of cattle 

 or sheep, no matter how extensive his herd 

 or flock ? " Cereals, improved by Haliett's 

 system, have now been cultivated in more 

 than forty different countries in Europe, 

 Asia, Africa, America, and Australia, with 

 complete success everywhere, so far as re- 

 ports have been received. A parcel of pedi- 

 gree wheat taken to Perth, "Western Austra- 

 lia, in 1862, where the average crop was ten 

 bushels to the acre, produced from twenty- 

 nine to thirty-five bushels to the acre, with 

 seventy-two as the largest number of heads 

 on one stool, and one hundred and thirteen 

 grains in the largest ear. In 1881 the same 

 wheat, or its descendant, produced, in New 

 Zealand, seventy-two bushels on one acre ; 

 with more than ninety ears, some of them 

 containing as many as one hundred and 

 thirty-two grains each, on single plants. 

 The same return seventy-two bushels to 

 the acre was reported cf three acres in 

 Essex, England, in 1876, with one hundred 

 and five ears, containing more than 8,000 

 grains, on one plant. Reports correspond- 

 ing with this have been received from Brus- 

 sieres, France ; Linlithgow, Scotland ; Rus- 

 sia, Hungary, Italy, Holland, Denmark, and 

 Sweden. The Hallett wheat withstood the 

 frosts of 1875 and 1876 in Belgium, when 

 other varieties were killed. In India, Sir 

 Seymour Fitzgerald, Governor of Bombay, 

 in 1870, reported the crop from the pedi- 

 gree wheat to be fifty per cent greater in 

 quantity and fifty per cent more valuable 

 in quality than that produced from the best 

 other seed that could be bought in the mar- 

 ket. The same success has been obtained 

 with barley and oats cultivated after this 

 system. A friend of Major Haliett's, in 

 Italy, applied his system to the sugar-beet, 

 with the result of obtaining, after seven 

 years of improvement, three times as much 

 sugar and wine from the same acreage of 

 roots as he had been accustomed to get at 

 first. Experimenting with the potato, Ma- 

 jor Ilallett has started each year, for four- 

 teen years, with a single tuber, the best of 

 the year, cultivating for freedom from dis- 



