Cereals. 113 



ties, however desirable, are not heritable. I have failed 

 to ascertain whether this opinion, which is so strongly 

 in opposition to Hallett's has been arrived at as the 

 result of experiment. But it is obvious that the progeny 

 of the ears picked at the edge of the field or in luxuriant 

 patches would require similar conditions of space and 

 soil for their full development, and as they would not 

 get them we should be raising a variety that was not 

 adapted to its environment. For the improvement of 

 races consists primarily in the adaptation of the plants 

 to the conditions in which they live ; the real point about 

 modern strains of cereals is that they can get more out 

 of the amount of manure which is usually applied, than 

 the old strains. A race is of little value except under 

 those particular conditions to which it is adapted; how 

 far it will spread in general cultivation depends on how 

 widely distributed these conditions are. 



There is therefore a greater likelihood of raising a 

 valuable race by Rimpau^s method, than by Hallett's; 

 but it takes a longer time to arrive at the result. And 

 even Rimpau did not succeed with every attempt; for 

 example he states that he spent a great deal of vain labor 

 in trying to improve the ordinary brown saxon wdieat by 

 his method.^ 



RiMPAu's Schlanstedt Rye is well known to every 

 farmer.^ He began working with it in 1867. When 

 I visited Rimpau on his estate at Schlanstedt in 1876 he 

 showed me his pedigree culture which even then fur- 

 nished the seed for the greater part of his domain. Since 

 1886 he has been in a position to sell his whole harvest 

 as seed.^ The race has general recognition and has con- 



^ RiSLER^s Wehenbaii, p. 66 note. 

 '^ V. RiJMKER, Gctreideziichtung, p. 74 . '' Weisenhau, pp. 65-66. 



