122 Transformation of ^gilo-ps into Wheat. 



becoming dried. I may add that plants of this form which I 

 have caused to be cultivated here (Jardin des Plantes, Paris), 

 since 1852, among other cereals, have always been respected by 

 the birds, which devoured the latter. 



"The fact of the successive modification o{ JE(jiloj)S triticoides^ 

 which after a certain number of years' cultivation tends more 

 and more to approach wheat, far from being improbable, seems to 

 me on the contrary, to agree with the opinion of various experi- 

 menters, who think that the descendants of fertile hybrids 

 incline gradually towards the type of one of the two parents, 

 through the gradual elimination of the characters of the other. 

 M. Naudin has recently made known a remarkable example of 

 it in the posterity of a hybrid JPrimnla, which, in the second 

 generation separated into two series, one returning to the paternal, 

 the other to tlie maternal type." * 



V. — Farm Accounts. By John Coleman, Professor of Agricul- 

 ture, Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. 



The necessity for keeping some kind of accounts is so generally 

 admitted by farmers that it is unnecessary to dwell upon the 

 importance of the subject. But in order to place the matter in 

 as clear a light as possible, it may be well to make one remark 

 as to the real meaning and purpose of farm accounts. Too many 

 are contented with keeping a mere Dr. and Cr. cash account, 

 which only shows the money received and spent, and gives no 

 trustworthy information as to the state of the profits or loss 

 upon a farm. That this is really the case will be seen at once, 

 when we consider that the condition of the soil and stock 

 form the farmer's real capital, and the balance at the bank may 

 be flourishing, whilst the stock, &c., are yearly depreciating. 

 The balance of the cash account furnishes a criterion as to the 

 healthy state of business, only when we view it in connexion 

 with the state of the capital account at the commencement and 

 end of each year. 



It will be tlie object of this article not so much to lay down a 

 perfect system of bookkeeping, as to point out how the general 

 principles of commercial accounts may be reduced to a form 

 adapted to the general purposes of the farmer. If we look to 

 the mercantile world we find that, though the principles which 

 regulate accounts are the same, the variati<ms in practice are 

 innumerable ; so much so that almost every great firm has a 

 system peculiar to itself, adapted to the nature of its business. 



* Comptes Rendus de TAcademie des Sciences,' April, 1856, p. 625. 



