THE WHEAT CULTUKIST. 237 



farmers should spend a part of a day, at harvest-time, 

 travelling about the country, for the purpose of seeing 

 where they can secure the earliest seed wheat. 



I believe that farmers, almost universally, pay little 

 or no attention to the time when seed ripens. If it is 

 only ripe and bright seed, perhaps not one farmer in 

 a thousand would even think, whether it ripened in 

 August, or in November." We cannot expect that any 

 seed which has come to maturity very late in the sea- 

 son, will produce a crop as early as the same kind of 

 seed will, which ripened in August. By collecting and 

 planting those seeds that ripened very late in the season, 

 we can soon produce a variety that will not ripen at all, 

 unless the season were unusually long and favorable. 



For this reason, we select, as far as practicable, those 

 ears of Indian corn for seed which ripen first ; and by 

 following up this practice, from year to year, we. pro- 

 duce a kind of seed that will mature in the shortest pos- 

 sible period of time ; while on the contrary, if we select 

 those ears for seed that came to maturity last, and con- 

 tinue that practice for a few years, we shall have all 

 roasting ears in October, and no sound corn. My expe- 

 rience on this subject goes to establish this position. 



A correspondent of the "Prairie Farmer" wrote to 

 that paper thus : " There is, perhaps, no branch of the 

 farmer's business which is conducted more hap-hazard 

 than the selecting of seed. Many do not realize the im- 

 portance of selecting the best of seed. To such I pro- 

 pose to offer a word of advice. All small grain may be 

 classed together ; for what holds good of wheat is also 

 true of barley, rye, or oats. I verily believe, that a 

 large share of the failure of wheat, in Northern Illinois, 

 is due to the fact, that the farmer simply goes to his bin 



