298 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



" honest " grocer will mix coffee at thirty cents with 

 coffee at forty cents, and sell the mixture for fifty cents 

 a pound. 



But the usefulness of botany to agriculture is not 

 limited by the examination of seeds. It extends to a 

 much wider field of activity. 



All I have said of the variability, heredity, crossing, 

 and selection in animals is equally true of plants. I 

 will, therefore, not repeat here the course of reasoning 

 used to show the usefulness of a scientific knowledge of 

 these principles to the farmer. I will only say that as 

 the farmer has to deal rather with plants than animals, 

 the arguments have proportionately the greater weight 

 here. 



To variations and selections, crossing and heredity 

 we are indebted for all the different varieties of the 

 cereals and other plants which make them so well 

 adapted to the different countries and climates in which 

 they grow. As in the case of animals, I can best illus- 

 trate this by a few examples. 



VARIATION, ETC'., IN WHEAT. 



Quatref ages relates that " the Abbe Tessier sowed 

 autumn wheat in the spring. Of a hundred seeds which 

 germinated only four ripened their seed. One hundred 

 seeds of this crop (also sown in the spring) produced 

 fifty fertile plants. In the third generation the whole 

 hundred seeds ripened. An inverse experiment pro- 

 duced similar results." 



The fact that good seed tends to produce good crops 

 has been known from the earliest times. Darwin states 

 that the careful selection of seed-corn was recommended 

 in ancient times by Calumella and Celsus, and espe- 

 cially Virgil, who says in his Georgics : 



