1857.] The Science of Breeding. 365 



while we are engaged in doing this we would be pleased if our farmers 

 would throw aside their delicacy and give us their experience 

 on wheat culture, mode of cultivation, results ; your fruits that suc- 

 ceed best, mode of culture, kind of soil, etc. Horticulturists, in re- 

 lation to fruits, flowers, shrubbery, etc., you can not fail to lend your 

 ray of light, and thus by an accumulation of facts better enable us 

 to arrive at truth. 



We have much to learn on this most profound of sciences, and it 

 is thus by uniting theory and practice we may hope to arrive at some 

 sure conclusions. 



Should wheat be placed within a quarter of an inch of the surface, 

 or as directed by our works, to the depth of from three to six inches, 

 or according to some more recent theorists, to the depth of from one 

 to two inches? Will not one bushel sowed at the former depth be of 

 more avail, produce more than two sowed to the depth of three inches 



or more ? 



Which is your best wheat? Give us your products. The White 

 Pirk we are persuaded is the best of forty-six kinds upon which we 

 have been experimenting. We will be able in our next to give some 

 facts and statistics. Ed. 



THE SCIENCE OF BREEDINa. 



It is notorious that the English have excelled all the rest of the 

 world in improving domestic animals. The whole secret consists in 

 understanding a few principles. Mr. Bakewell, the greatest im- 

 prover of sheep, was unwilling to his death to favor his countrymen 

 with the least information on his system of breeding, and therefore 

 most sheep growers have concluded that he made important discov- 

 eries with which others were not acquainted ; but this is far from 

 being the fact. Bakewell evidently adopted the rule of crossing 

 to remedy defects. If a sheep, for instance, was too light in the hind 

 quarters, he bred it with one that was good in that particular; if the 

 chest was not right in one, he attempted to correct the deficiency by 

 the first cross. His sheep were not so large as others, but they were 



