IMPEOVED STKAINS OF BOOTS 83 



the best shaped and most typical of the spring-sown roots, 

 wintering these in pits and planting them out in the spring for 

 growing seed ; that the firms never sold of this stock seed, but 

 supplied it to growers, and only one variety to each grower, in 

 order to avoid crossing ; that this stock seed was sown late in 

 July, covered in the winter, and planted out in spring for seed 

 growing ; the seed so produced formed the trade seed which the 

 firms sold to farmers or dealers. Andersen recommended 

 the same system of seed growing to be introduced in Denmark, 

 and pointed out that a leading man was required who could 

 improve the stock seed by selection, cross-breeding, or other 

 means and supply it to growers, principally small-holders. 

 Buyers of seed would thereby get a guarantee of good quality, 

 production would be regulated, and seed growers would be 

 secured a market for their seed. The Society for Improving 

 Cultivated Plants took this matter up, and several farmers and 

 small-holders began to produce stock seed and to improve their 

 particular strains. 



In 1885 the Society somewhat altered its aim inasmuch as 

 the encouragement of the production of seed took a second 

 place. The chief work henceforth was to carry out comparative 

 cultivations of various field plants, chiefly roots, in order to find 

 which varieties and which individual strains within the variety 

 gave the greatest yield. It was very soon decided that the aim 

 should be to find those strains which gave the greatest yield of 

 solids per acre. 1 Chr. P. Jacobsen (Markfr0kontoret) had 

 already started such work, and had engaged L. Helweg, a young 

 horticultural graduate from the Eoyal Agricultural College, 

 to superintend and report on these trials. In March, 1886, the 

 Society, co-operating with Markfr0kontoret, engaged Helweg 

 to undertake this work for the Society, and the same year 

 he published his first report 2 on the cultivation of roots. Since 

 then we have had a report from his hand every year. He 

 arrived at the preliminary conclusions that it was necessary to 

 observe not only the yield of roots per acre, but also the con- 

 tents of dry matter or solids in the roots ; that different varieties 

 of roots had a different contents of solids, and that this varied 



1 " Om Landbrugets Kulturplanter," 1885, p. 178. 

 * Ibid., 1887, p. 129. 



