8May, 1908.] Improvemcui of Cereals by Selection and Crossing. 285 



Some time after Le Couteur had begun his work, Patrick Shirreff, in 

 Scotland, followed the same principle but after a somewhat different 

 method. He observed that in his wheat-fields sometimes single plants 

 appeared which looked more promising than the remainder. He saved 

 the ears of such plants separately and sowed the grains and multiplied 

 them in such a way as to prevent admixture with any other sorts. His 

 fiist success was obtained in 18 19 with what he called " Mungoswell's 

 wheat,"' after the name of the field from which it was taken. The 

 history of this wheat will show his method clearly. In that year he 

 noticed quite accidentally, in a field of wheat, a single plant which was 

 of a deeper green than the others and with a greater number of ears. He 

 chose this plant to begin with and in order to give it the best possible 

 chance to develop to its full extent, he allowed it more space by destroying 

 the surrounding plants, manured it specially, and tended it carefully. 

 The result was that it yielded 6^ heads and about 2,500 grains. He 

 sowed all the seed next season by itself in a separate field and gave it 

 plenty of room so as to allow of free branching. The same was repeated 

 with all the seed reaped next year and after two years of this rapid 

 multiplication he was able to place it on the market. He assumed that 

 the original plant from which he obtained it was simply a sport from 

 the variety in which he found it, and that it was the onlv one. It was 

 regarded as one of the most profitable varieties of Scotland and found 

 its way into England and France. 



Following the same principle he afterwards isolated a new \ariety 

 of oats under the name of " Hopetown bats," another wheat which he 

 called " Hopetown wheat" and finally " Shirreff's oats," which was so- 

 prolific as to receive the name from the growers of it of " Make-him 

 rich." Working for a period of nearly 40 vears he succeeded in, obtaining 

 these four new varieties of wheat and oats. But during this time, from 

 his constant habit of being on the look-out for new and striking forms, he 

 had learned a deal about the variability to which the wheat-plant is 

 subject and he saw that, although exceptional forms were rare, there were 

 a number of less promising forms which might yield good results. 

 Accordingly in 1857 he changed his method of working and made his 

 experiments on a larger scale. Instead of selecting the ears from a 

 solitary plant and from one field, he gathered them from a number of 

 plants in all the fields to which he had access — wherever they showed 

 any marked and striking peculiarity which might be an improvement on 

 the average. In this wav he selected 70 ears from different individual 

 plants and sowed the seed from each separately, so that they could be 

 compared among themselves and with the variety from which they were 

 chosen. He ultimately selected the three best; rejecting the others and 

 placed them on the market as " Shirreff's l^earded white," " Shirreff's 

 bearded red," and " Pringle's wheat." The first two are still regarded 

 by Vilmorin as among the best wheats of France and " Shirreff's bearded 

 white " has been found to be. very producti\e in Britain. He next turned 

 his attention to oats and four of his selections were of sufficient excellence 

 to be placed on the market. In 1872 he published an account of his 

 experiments and results in a paper entitled On the Improvement of 

 Cereals. Latterly, he turned his attention to the crossing of cereals, and 

 this he evidently regarded as a further extension of the principle of 

 having a greater amount of variability to select from. 



The principle followed bv Le Couteur and Shirreff was distinct and 

 clear. A single initial choice w'as made and subsequent rapid multiplica- 



