Seed Wheat. 43 



Tailings Used in the Trials Better than Ordirvary Tailings. 



In making comparisons between the results recorded in these pages and the results to 

 be obtained from the practice of -sowing tailings, or in other words, sowing small and 

 shrivelled seed, it is necessary to keep in mind that the seed here experimented with was 

 in all cases whole seed, none of it was cracked or split or unhealthy. On the other 

 hand, the samples of small and shrivelled seed that have been used and lauded, or at least 

 excused in practice, usually contain a considerable proportion of split, diseased, and 

 useless material. This is due to the fact that the wide use of the stripper leaves in our 

 wheat a considerable proportion of split grains, and these accumulate in the tailings. 

 Examinations I have made lead me to the conclusion that 10 to 20 per cent, of the 

 tailings, such as are not unfrequently kept and used for seed purposes, is composed of 

 split grains that are valueless as seed. Such split grains, together with other diseased, 

 useless, and more or less foreign matter, occasionally compose 30 to 40 per cent, of the 

 >bulk of the tailings from ordinary cleaning machinery. 



These observations, which are based on actual counts of measured quantities of tailings, 

 throw considerable light upon the contention frequently heard from those who advocate 

 or condone the use of poor quality seed-wheat, the contention, namely, that although 

 the seeds are smaller in these tailings there are so many more of them that their small 

 size is made up for by this increase in numbers, for it must be remembered that the 

 -apparent increase in the number of seeds in ordinary tailings, due to the smaller size of 

 the seeds, has to be diminished by the bulk of this worthless and foreign matter before 

 we arrive at the true number of seeds, and that this diminution amounts in different 

 samples to from 5 to 40 per cent. From my observations and measurements I should be 

 inclined to set the average at somewhere between 10 per cent, and 20 per cent. 



This allowance has to be made before beginning to compare the results of these experi- 

 ments with the arguments advanced for using tailings as seed, for the small and shrivelled 

 ;seed in all these trials was freed from such split and foreign matter. Every seed sown 

 was a perfect seed of the size set down in the photographs of tailings (Figs. 10, 14, 21, 

 22, 31 and 32), and had the advantage in all cases of being derived from healthy plants. 

 None of the small and shrivelled seed used in these trials could have been derived from 

 plants diseased in any manner except from attacks of rust. In certain instances, seed 

 was purposely selected from plants that had suffered from rust, but such cases do not 

 compose more than a small percentage of the trials. It is almost impossible to secure 

 plants absolutely free from rust ; so that in nearly all cases the plants furnishing the 

 seed bore a very small quantity of rust, but it was a very small quantity indeed in the 

 great majority of cases. The healthiness of the tailings used in these trials comes about 

 from the fact that the seed for the experiments was derived from the plants selected out 

 of a large number as being the best for seed purposes. The selection was made by 

 examining each plant most carefully, diseased and imperfect plants being rigidly 

 excluded, except in the cases mentioned. 



It will therefore be seen that it is impossible to attribute the results of the trials 

 recorded in the tables to diseased seed. If any suggestion can be entertained in this 

 connection it is that the germination and growth here recorded is higher than would be 

 the case with ordinary seed-wheat. I cannot help believing that here again the con- 

 ditions of the trials favour the small seeds as compared with ordinary practice, because 

 I have come to the conclusion that the diseased seeds that are not unfrequent in ordinary 

 seed-wheat accumulate in ever increasing number in the smaller grades, so that, for 

 instance, if an ordinary sample of wheat be cleaned and graded, its diseased seed will 

 .appear in greater percentage in the smaller grades, simply for the reason that such 

 diseased seeds are of smaller size than their healthy companions. This conclusion is one 

 that I have formed from the examination of a large number of examples of seed-wheat, 

 and I think, inasmuch as the seed of small size used in these trials was almost invariably 

 derived from most carefully selected healthy plants, that the germination and growth 

 displayed by them is in excess of what would be found in ordinary practice. 



The weight per bushel of the small grains of a given sample is less than that of the 

 large grains from the same sample. 



These facts furnish the basis for instructive comparisons with the relative yields given 

 in the tables of trials of large and small grains. 



Irregularity of Stand from Ungraded Seed. 



If the reader will turn to page 22 and examine the illustration there given of the 

 difference in size of the plants that grow from large, small, and medium-sized seed, he 

 will, I am sure, be struck by the contrasts. The plants from the small seeds are a large 

 fraction of a foot shorter than those from large seeds. This is part of their general 

 inferiority. If such plants derived from large and from small seeds were mixed together 



