PURITY OF SEED. 37 



and vigorous stalk, you may get as good an ear as the ear 

 from which you took the seed ; but you are all in the dark ; 

 it is not a necessary result : whereas, if you adopt the method 

 which has been so well described by Capt. Moore, you know 

 with a very great degree of certainty that the male portion 

 of the fertilizing element must have been first class. Does 

 Mr. Comins see the point? 



Mr. Comins. I see the point : but I would like to inter- 

 rupt you a moment to say that Nature also comes to my aid 

 in this thing ; for the best male stalks are developed about 

 the time that the best female organs are ready to receive the 

 pollen, and therefore they are more likely to be fertilized by 

 those. Indeed, they are fertilized by those ; because it is 

 only during a ver}^ short period of time that this fertilization 

 can go on, and the female organs are much more likely to be 

 fertilized by those very vigorous early-developed stalks than 

 by the puny ones which are not developed. Nature comes 

 to my aid in that thing. 



Capt. Moore. Wjuld you undertake to say that they 

 were not fertilized by imperfect stalks which blossomed at 

 the same time ? There is the point. I don't think you have 

 covered it at all. 



Mr. Whitaker. I want to make a statement here in 

 regard to this matter. We say that the same laws which 

 govern fertilization and cross-fertilization of plants also 

 govern the fertilization of animals. I used to go into Canada 

 every year. At one time I saw a very fine breed of Essex 

 pigs at Hamilton. I bought a couple of those pigs, — a boar 

 and a sow, — both bred from imported stock, but from differ- 

 ent breeders. I brought mine home, and in the first litter of 

 pigs there was a black-and-white one. There was the evi- 

 dence that I had not got pure stock, — a black-and-white 

 pig. I wrote directl}^ to the gentleman in Hamilton from 

 whom I got them, stating the fact. He wrote back that he 

 had guaranteed the purity of the stock ; that the head of 

 the family that he had imported had been guaranteed, and 

 that from his he had no black-and-white pigs. He wrote 

 directly to England ; and he got compensation on his guar- 

 anty, and I got compensation on my guaranty. I never raised 

 from those two pigs a litter of pigs in which I did not have 

 one black-and-white. Now, this man guaranteed my Essex 



