ExPKRIMENTi^ IN THE IIvBiaillZATION OK CrUEALS. 431 



Black Sea, a full bearded variety ; the chaff had taken a 

 reddish tinge from the Black Sea; and the kernels were 

 larger, plumper, and of lighter color than those of that vari- 

 ety, evidently partaking strongly of the character of the 

 Gold Drop. Great vigor was displayed by the plants, and 

 the heads were of unusual length. Possibly this great vigor 

 was in part due to the good effect of crossing ; certainly 

 good cultivation had something to do with it. 



The selected product of these plants was the second spring 

 sown in drills and kept separate by numbered stakes. As 

 the plants grew luxuriantly and tillered freely, I counted on 

 a rapid increase of my stock of these new varieties, which, 

 judging from the character they exhibited the previous year, 

 would, beyond question, be valuable gains to agriculture. 

 But as the heads issued from the sheath of the upper leaf, 

 great was my astonishment and dismay to observe among 

 the plants of each class a wide diversity of forvns. There 

 were heads of various lengths and of many forms ; there 

 were awnless heads, and heads bearded in every degree. As 

 the other characters, those belonging to the kernel, devel- 

 oped, it became manifest that the several characters of both 

 original types were jostling together in complete confusion. 

 Reversion was playing its part; and, struggling against inher- 

 itance, was gaining for certain characters the ascendency in 

 one plant, wliile in another it was giving the advantage to 

 those quite different. It was apparently seeking to resolve 

 the hybridity I had effected, and to carry back a part of the 

 plants to one parent form and a part to the other. That it 

 did not in some instances completely succeed in this, show- 

 ing me from this union resolved the Black Sea and the Gold 



