126 



some portion, at least, of what I have claimed as a perfectly- 

 original discovery. Now the fact is, that throughout Le 

 Couteur's hook there is no mention Avhatever of his having grown 

 in competition with each other the grains of the same ear, nor 

 has he once made any allusion which could lead to the supposi- 

 tion that he ever had the slightest idea that there existed any 

 difference in their power. In a letter to me from Jersey^ 

 October 15, 1860, Colonel Le Couteur writes : — 



" The great leading principle of my experiments was one 

 which you have so well accomplished — the selection of the most 

 productive wheat from a single grain, originally taken from the 

 finest ear — my further test lieing to discover that most produc- 

 tive of the finest meal. XecessarOj^ the variety which would 

 produce the largest quantity of the finest, whitest, and most 

 nutritious meal, or rather bread, per acre, would be the most 

 ])vecious. The Belle Vue Talavera is the produce of one grain." 



What Le Couteur did was to raise a stock from a single 

 grain and keep it pure. He planted the grains of an entire ear of 

 ■each of 14 varieties, and comi)ared the produce in quality and 

 <|uantity of the different varieties. This was all he did as to selec- 

 tion, and it has not the slightest bearing upon my own prin- 

 ciples of selection. Indeed, the result of his labours was to 

 (establish an arrest of development so fixed that I Avas quite unable 

 in ten years' cultivation of liis wheat to obtain the slightest 

 variation in the direction of additional spikelets or of grains, 

 although in upwards of 70 varieties from all parts of the world 

 upon which I had experimented I had never once failed to obtain 

 such increase, and thus I finally rejected, as unavailalde for my pur- 

 I loses, that very wheat whicli was the final liest outcome of Lc 

 '( Vjuteur's experiments. The simple fact was that he started with 

 a single grain from a fine ear, and afterwards endeavoured to 

 keep its produce pure, and by the competitive trials of different 

 varieties, to discover, to quote his own words already given, 

 " that variety which would produce the largest quantity of the 

 finest, whitest, and most nutritious meal." He never went even 



