44 Seed Wheat. 



in a common crop, and this is precisely what occurs in the great majority of our wheat crops, 

 it is very easy to see that the harvest operations would be more difficult and less success- 

 ful than they would be if the crop was more uniform in height ; for if the low-growing 

 heads are to be reached with the stripper, then the tall plants must be taken at a dis- 

 advantage, because so much straw has to be taken with them ; and if the stripper i& 

 worked for the high-growing heads, then some of the lowest are missed. If the reaper 

 and binder is being used, there is still a difficulty, which does not cease until after 

 the sheaves are put through the thresher. I am inclined to think that the difficulties 

 and losses resulting from irregularity in the growth of a crop are under-estimated, and 

 looked upon as unavoidable. The use of graded seed will tend to reduce irregular growth, 

 and thus help to avoid these difficulties. 



All this is quite separate from the fact of inferior yield from ungraded seed, and con- 

 stitutes an additional argument for the use of graded seed. 



Are Gigantic Grains Defective ? 



I have sometimes heard it said that the very largest seeds are not the best to sow. 

 Whether this is part and parcel of the belief sometimes expressed in the good qualities of 

 small seeds, I cannot say. I have sometimes come across gigantic grains, whose size was 

 due to a fungus disease, and this has led me to think that there might possibly be some- 

 thing in the idea that monstrously large seed in the case of wheat, that is might be of poor 

 quality. In the present series of trials there is nothing to countenance this idea. So far 

 as I can see, the larger the seed the larger the yield, though the advantage grows 

 relatively less as we go up the scale of grades, and as the cost of securing sufficient of the 

 larger grades increases with the increase in the size of the seed, the profitableness of 

 using only the very largest seeds is thus diminished. 



It should be borne in mind that the author gives room here to little opinion as to the 

 absolute value of the crops raised from large seed. He has concerned himself mainly with 

 the market value. It may be that the use of the very largest seed, and the consequent 

 striving always after size, will lead to a lower absolute quality in the product. This is 

 a matter that it would be very interesting to inquire into carefully, not only with regard 

 to wheat, but also with regard to crops of every nature, the question being, " Does the 

 constant striving after large size and fine appearance tend to bring us towards a limit 

 beyond which there is an absolute loss of product, loss of quality, loss in absolute value " ? 

 This question is certainly one that may be asked with a show of reason, and one that it 

 would be well to have answered, but is one that will give the wheat producer of the 

 present very little trouble. Be has his living to make, and the market value is his 

 touchstone, no matter how absurd the basis of that value may be. 



There are, so far as I can see, no circumstances in which it is advisable in this State to sow 

 small seed-wheat on land suitable for wheat-growing if it is reasonably possible to secure 

 large, plump seed. The most that can be said is that if we knew beforehand that the season 

 was to be of a certain favourable character, the prospective loss of yield from the use of 

 pinched and small seed would not be so great as it would otherwise be. As, however, we 

 never know what the season is going to be, I fail to see how we can advise the use of small 

 and shrivelled seed, even if it entailed under such favourable circumstances a gain instead 

 of a loss, simply because we cannot predict the seasons. Are we to use small and pinched 

 seed season after season on the off chance that if a good season comes along we shall not 

 lose quite as much as usual ? That is really the absurdity into which the argument about 

 the good qualities of small seed seems to resolve itself. 



I take it /or granted that a given piece of land will bear to the best advantage at one time 

 only a certain number of plants, and that it should ahvays be the object of the farmer to have 

 the land bear that number of plants, and to have the plants as thrifty and productive as 

 possible, and if these suppositions are true, I cannot see that it will be anything but a loss to 

 supply these plants by sowing small, shrivelled, and, therefore, inferior seed. 



Those who defend the sowing of small seed have a stock argument in the saying that 

 there are so many more grains in every bushel of small seed that the resultant crop will 

 be just as good some even go so far as to say better. The argument that a bushel of 

 small seed contains more grains breaks down at a number of points. In the first place, 

 the argument seems to assume that the cost of the seed is a factor of the highest import- 

 ance in the question. This is not so. The cost of small and inferior seed, although it is 

 less, is not very much less. The difference is too small to be any great argument against 

 large seed. As before pointed out, there is some reason to suppose that the actual fodder - 



