194 Single Seed Selection. 



changes. Monasteries had been built, abbeys founded, and 

 churches erected, and although the people were in a state of 

 semi-civilisation it was due more to their unsettled and war-like 

 propensities and their intense love of freedom. 



Demolition of Castle. 



For the next two hundred years history is silent regarding the 

 castle or palace at Lochfergus. Whether it was inhabited or not 

 we cannot tell. It may have been rendered uninhabitable during 

 the wars of the Bruce. In 1471, however, the lands of Loch- 

 fergus passed by charter into the hands of the Maclellans cf 

 Bombie, and from Pitcairn's criminal trials we learn that it was 

 burned to the ground by " Thomas Huthinson and Carnyis in ye 

 Copsewood in 1499." The ruined walls remained standing till 

 about the year 1570, when they were demolished by Maclellan 

 in order to get stones for his Castle of Kirkcudbright. 



Special Afternoon fleeting — Hth June, li)09. 



Chairman — Professor Scott-Elliot, P. 



Single Seed Selection. By the President. 



The method of producing a new strain of corn or of some 

 other agricultural plant by selecting one single seed is by no 

 means novel. 



It would seem at first sight obvious that a heavy plump seed 

 containing a large amount of food-reserve ought to produce par- 

 ticularly vigorous de.scendants. Both Patrick Shirreff, of Had- 

 dington, in 1832, and Hallett, of Brighton, experimented on thc.^e 

 lines. The first produced the celebrated Hopetown oats. In 

 the first year of his experiments Hallett found only 47 grains in 

 the best ear of his wheat. He selected the finest grain for sowing, 

 and in the second year had got as much as 90 grains in one ear of 

 corn. 



Both these famous benefactors used to be very generous to 

 their selected grains, planting them under specially favourable 



