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spring wheats, but it would not mature here on account of the shortness of our 

 wheat season. The Chili wheat, M^ien sown here in the ftill, cannot endure the 

 freezing of our winter any better than our oats. Now, however excellent such 

 wheats are in the latitudes best adapted to them, jet when brought to a different 

 latitude they must first be acclimated by such cultivation as will, as nearly as 

 possible, make up for the differences of climate. Thus the English spring wheat 

 should have been early sown in a sheltered bed, sufficiently manured to hasten 

 its maturity. The Chili wheat must be protected from severe freezing, or first 

 sown in a southern State, and gradually extended north. But then, the general 

 law is, that when at last it is acclimated, it has lost its superiority, and is no 

 better than the common wheats of the country. But then, again, there are 

 foreign wheats grown in climates more like our own than the English and 

 Chilian wheats mentioned, as the Mediterranean, and such may become valuable 

 to our farmers. 



From these remarks it will be seen that a knowledge of the character of the 

 seed is necessary, and that thought and care are essential in its reproductiou 

 here. The general complaint of the running out of our Avheats points to the 

 fact that our native seeds are so reproduced as to cause their degeneracy instead 

 of their improvement. This can be done iu one way only — by a disregard of 

 some or of all of the laws referred to. 



The cu»tomaiy manner of procuring seed wheat, and of all other of the 

 small cereals, is to take it from the general crop, and clean it as best can be 

 done by a wind-mill. Such seed contains the best grains grown, many that are 

 imperfect, and the seeds of diseases, as of smut. Such imperfections, joined to 

 ordinary or inferior culture, must result in depreciation. Every stock-grower 

 would admit such result among his stock, if no better plan of selecting his 

 breeding animals was adopted. He, on the contrary, carefully chooses the male 

 and female parents, weighing their perfections and faults, and so adapting one 

 parent to the other, that a like fault in both shall not exist. These animals, 

 from their first of life, have been well fed, cleaned, and housed. Everything 

 essential to their full and complete develoj^ment has been observed. The laws 

 of descent. have been carefully studied. Now the laws governing vegetable 

 propagation are the same as those of animal descent. But the one is almost 

 universally overlooked, whilst the other is admitted and observed. If there is 

 any exception, it is in Indian corn. This has been improved, both in quality 

 and variety, attributable to the fact that, whether a farmer selects his seed coru 

 from the crib, or goes into the field in autumn and chooses the earliest and most 

 perfectly ripened ears, he selects the best, and rejects all of inferior quality. 

 Now a selection of the best is still more important in the small cereals, because 

 from its crowded growth there are many more partially grown grains. But even 

 the best grown, from this crowded state and other causes, presently to be men- 

 tioned, are no better than the seed from which they sprung. Hence there is no 

 advance. There are, then, two things to be done — to select the best, and improve 

 that by cultivation. 



Every one has heard of the celebrated barrel wheat, grown by a thinking 

 farmer. It acquired so extensive a reputation that his crop was sold for seed 

 alone. Ultimately this variety was found to be produced by selection only. 

 The earlier ripened and larger grains were separated from the rest by gently 

 striking the sheaf across the open head of a barrel. Their weight and earlier 

 maturity loosened them sooner from the enveloping chaff. As these better grains 

 were separated from the inferior, the result was a greater amount of good grains 

 and fewer inferior. It was but an instance of the result of the law that "like 

 begets like" — that law whose observance has produced the Durham, the Vir- 

 ginia racer, the South Down and Spanish Merino, and the Magei' hog. Let us 

 but regard its influence as all-powerful iu the production of our cereals by a like 

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