5Y4 



it is our duty to make the most of what we have, and to give our land 

 a full opportunity to work for us. As I referred you at the commence- 

 ment of this address to the lightness of the average production of 

 wheat per acre, and have spoken of one of the causes of this lightness 

 arising fjom a want of thorough cultivation, and not from any defect 

 inherent in the soil ; I will now turn to another cause which has to do 

 more particularly with the wheat plant itself. 



I believe that the seed sown is very defective, and that in it there 

 might be a great change made for the better. The generality of wheat 

 sown and grown,is much lighter in straw, shorter in head, smaller in ker- 

 nel, and the sound grains fewer in number to each ear of grain, than they 

 ought to be if we mean to approximate a maximum crop ; and that 

 should be the ambition of every farmer who puts a plow in the ground. 

 If that is not his guiding principle let him come out from the plow 

 stilts, he has no business there ; and let a better man fill bis place. 



I say that most of our seed wheat needs a little new blood infused 

 into it just as we infuse now blood from distant regions or foreign coun- 

 tries into our sheep to improve the quality of their wool, or into our 

 cattle to improve their fattening qualities. It is a well known principle 

 in vegetable physiology that if a single variety of any kind of plant is 

 grown for a long series of years in the same soil, it will eventually 

 deteriorate, and, to use the common expression, "run out." All our 

 cultivated or domestic plants, it is also well known, have originated 

 from a wild stock, and have been brought to their present perfection by 

 a long continued system of cultivation, which has in many points 

 changed them so that they would hardly be recognized as belonging 

 to the same family as their wild originals. When left to themselves, 

 however, the natural habit of the plant will resume its sway, and there 

 will always be some of its progeny that will show an inclination tO' 

 return to the habits of the native uncultivated plant in their form, 

 depreciated size, and want of all those qualities that make it valuable 

 to man. 



As an instance of the tendency of plants to depreciate in value from 

 want of proper cultivation, I will point you to a well known variety of 

 wheat, the Soules, extensively grown in this State. Within the past 

 three years I have had opportunities of examining it in different parts 

 of the State, both in the field uncut, and after it has been made ready 



