.Seed Wheat. 



valuable results. The test applied has the merit of having a proved 

 relation* to the amount of the resulting crop, as well as that of being 

 easily applied. 



I cannot help feeling that a number of people will, at first glance, 

 regard any effort to prove the lower value of small grains as seed to be 

 rather in the nature of an effort to kill a dead horse. Still I find it 

 impossible to disclaim the necessity of harping on this subject so long 

 as there exist among us advocates of the use of such seed, and, above 

 all, so long as it can be shown that our practice is as far below what 

 it ought to be as it is at present. 



So long as it can be shown in the manner here adopted that the 

 bulk of our wheat growers are using seed of a quality no higher than 

 that disclosed by these examinations, there will exist the disagreeable 

 necessity on the part of our leading lights to keep on pointing out the 



325 



3-00 



275 



Fig. 2. Three sieves with meshes of three different widths, from 3'25 millimetres to 275 millimetres; 

 shown about one-tenth natural size. 



fact. It seems to me that our agricultural officers of all kinds, and 

 especially the teachers in the agricultural schools, should keep the facts 

 of the case prominently before growers and intending growers. 



This can be done at the schools and colleges through passages in 

 lectures, and even more forcibly by ocular demonstration year by 

 year through the growth side by side of plants derived from small, 

 medium-sized, and large seed. Object lessons of this kind have an 

 exceedingly high value if used in the right way far higher than is 

 generally realised. Both students and visitors will, from such con- 

 tinuous annual demonstrations, be more strongly impressed than 

 through almost any other means. 



For several years demonstration plots of this nature were grown at 

 the Wagga Farm, and they were inspected, first and last, by thousands 

 of people. Side by side were to be seen rows of plants grown from 

 large, medium-sized, and small grains. In each season these were to 

 be seen growing on varying soil, and exemplified in the most diverse 



* The proof is presented in the second part of this report. 



