Seed Wheat. 



27 



it was very rare indeed for a plant to be injured by the method adopted to keep down 

 the weeds. Where a plant disappeared it may be taken for granted that it was from 

 * ' natural " causes. 



How the yields were compared. 



In the following tables, generally speaking, the comparisons are made between the 

 yield of plants grown from seed of one grade and the yield from seed of the grade next 

 below ; but this is not always the case. In some instances the yield from the largest 

 seed (Fig. 4) is compared with the yield from the smallest seed (Fig. 10), but such instances 

 are exceptional. Grade 200 was necessarily always compared with the tailings ; so 

 also 225 could be compared only with the grade immediately below or with that two steps 

 below. As we progress to higher and higher grades there is an ever-increasing chance 

 that the comparison may be between widely-different .grades ; but, as before remarked, 

 the aim in this statement of trials was to compare, as far as convenient, each grade with 

 that one or two steps below it, and this result was, in general, secured, as will be seen 

 on examining the tables in detail. A rather different and simpler system was adopted in 

 the third and subsequent trials. 



Perhaps, the best general statement of the results may be made by saying that the 

 325 grade proved itself better in capacity to grow and to yield both grain and straw 

 than the 300 grade ; that in a similar manner the 300 grade proved itself superior to the 

 275 grade, which in turn proved superior to 250 grade, and so on to the bottom of the list. 

 We have to make an exception in the case of the 225 grade, where, in fact, the number 

 of trials is too small to be decisive. 



However, even this statement of the superiority of each grade over those immediately 

 below it, and by implication and in fact, over all below it, is not a statement that needs no 

 explanation or qualification, for it will be observed that the relative superiority of the 200 

 grade while it is decisive for the season in question is not so great as that of other grades. 

 This is due to two facts first, the comparison was always with the grade immediately 

 below, while in the other grades, in some instances, the comparisons were extended to 

 grades two and three steps below ; second, the tailings with which the 200 was always 

 compared is a miscellaneous lot of seed that passes the two-millimetre mesh, but may, 

 nevertheless, contain some really rather large seed, owing to the fact that some seeds in 

 every lot are so flat that they pass on to the grades lower than their real size would 

 warrant. Now, while this fact operates throughout the system of seeding obtained by 

 the process of grading adopted, I am inclined to think that it operates most strongly in 

 the case of the tailings where there is no further attempt to grade, and where, therefore, 

 these extra flat seeds collect that should pass on to lower grades, if such existed. 



TABLE of Yields of Grain and Straw. (Second Trial.) 



