434 State Boakd of Agkicultuuk, &c. 



came into bloom snccessfully, and furnished me with an 

 ample supply of pollen. The heads of this variety were 



of medium length, but the spikelets were crowded upon the 

 rachis in a manner I had never seen equalled. I recognized 

 this at once as an additional character of merit, which I 

 could employ to render more close the loose heads of some 

 of our old varieties. The Berlin wheat, once known as the 

 Rio Gi'ande, I believe, and latel}^ disseminated anew under 

 the name of the Dodge wheat, whose heads are remarkably 

 long and loose, I impregnated with the White Hamburgh 

 to this end. To be most certain of securing the line quality 

 of the White Hamburgh, I applied its pollen to the stigmas 

 of the Gold Drop, which alread)' possessed that character 

 to a good degree, and to those of the Michigan Club, a sim- 

 ilar sort. 



The progeny of these several cross-fertilizations fully vindi- 

 cate the correctness of my designs. The behavior of these 

 later cross-breeds has been identical with that of the crosses 

 between the Black Sea and the Gold Drop, already described 

 so particularly. The same intermediate state between their 

 respective parents the first year, the same wild sporting after- 

 wards, only since the divergence between the parent forms 

 in these instances was wider, the range of diversity among^ 

 the sporting forms was most astonishing. The various char- 

 acters of the original varieties liad entered into innumerable 

 permutations, producing almost every form which could be 

 conceived of. There were varieties with short, closely filled 

 heads resembling the White Hamburgh, and from this 

 extreme was exhibited every gradation of length up to the 

 other extreme of heads six or seven inches long. There 



