502 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



later than that grown from native seed. As the cereals, which, as we have 

 gaid, possess great flexibility, and are readily subject to tbc iuHuencos of soil 

 and climate, we might naturally expect to iiud that wheat grown for a long 

 time in southern Tennessee or northern Alabama, where the mean temperature 

 of March equals, if it does not surpass, that of April in northern Kentucky 

 and southern Ohio, would acquire a tendency to early vegetation, which it 

 would retain when removed to more northern localities, and the plant be thus 

 enabled by early maturity to escape the high heats of early summer, and thf* 

 insect enemies which appear at the period of the late ripening of northern- 

 grown wheats. Though it may be advisable to use southern-grown wheat for 

 seed, the rule, we fear, will not apply if such seed has grown more than two 

 or three degrees further south. All northern planters who have experimented 

 with southern-grown seed-maize have learned that they cannot ripen the crop 

 if the seed has been brought from a few degrees of lower latitude. This arises 

 from the sudden decline of the temperature of September and October, and the 

 early access of killing frosts, Avhich shorten the period of gTOWth to which the 

 large and rank-growing southern kinds of corn have been accustomed, though 

 the summer heats may have been the same as they had known in their native 

 place. In the case of the southern wheats removed to a northern soil, the 

 variety is not more rank or strong-growing, does not appear to require a longer 

 season, but has had impressed upon it a proclivity to early vegetation by the 

 influence of the early heats of March and April, which are not known in the 

 north imtil April and May, respectively. 



The first successful attempts to grow wheat in the West India islands, in 

 more recent times, appears to have been made in 1835, in Jamaica and New 

 Providence. The varieties used in these experiments were the Victoria wheat, 

 which had been grown for two centuries by the Spanish farmers of Caraccas, 

 and an English white wheat, and an English red wheat, also the Victoria 

 wheat of English growth. In these experiments perfect success attended the 

 use of the Caraccas wheat when sown either in Jamaica, at a height of 2,000 

 to 4,000 feet above the sea, or at New Providence, but just removed above the 

 ocean level. This is ascribed to the long acclimation of this variety to the 

 heats of a tropical winter which may be taken at nearly 70° Fahrenheit, even 

 in the elevated regions of Jamaica and at New Providence in the lower dis- 

 tricts. But while the productiveness of the Caraccas wheat was increased by 

 its approach to a lower level, the English seed-wheat sown proved a total 

 failure. Even the English-grown Caraccas was highly productive in New 

 Providence, though the varieties, long inured to the cool, humid climate of 

 Britain, scarcely produced stems, and in one instance spread into a turf refu- 

 sing to foi-m straw or head under the new aspect of affairs. Thus we perceive 

 that the wheats transferred from a colder to a warmer region did not succeed ; 

 and that the Caraccas wheat grown one season in Britain had not lost its 

 peculiarities by the voyage, but was nearly, if not quite, equal in product to 

 its native but untravelled brother, the original Victoria of Caraccas growth. 

 Surely there existed in the latter variety some inherent virtue which even the 

 dull skies of England could not destroy. 



THE PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIES OF WHEAT. 



The production of new varieties of wheat either by careful selection of su 

 perior kinds, the spontaneous growth of nature, or by judiciously crossing 

 varieties which possess properties it is desirable should be combined and per- 

 petuated, offers a fitting iield for the exercise of the skill '5f those vegetable 

 physiologists#who would advance the welfiire of a nation by devoting them- 

 selves practically to the increased production of this staff" of life. The extra- 

 ordinary improvements effected in our esculent vegetables and fruits of almost 



