IMPEOVED STKAINS OF ROOTS 



47 



of carrots and turnips. The average yields in cwts. of solids 

 or dry matter per acre for Class I. and Class III. were : 



The differences in value between the greater yields from 

 strains of Class I. and the yields from strains of Class III. have 

 been calculated per acre at the prices then ruling as : 



It would, therefore, evidently be a great gain to farmers if 

 the third-class strains could be eliminated and the first- class 

 strains could be more widely grown. That was the very result 

 these competitions were aiming at, viz. to bring the first-class 

 strains to the notice of farmers, and thus to induce them to 

 neglect the inferior strains, and to show the seed growers, who 

 worked with inferior strains, where they could get superior 

 stock for their future seed growing. 



With the year 1899 these preliminary investigations were 

 brought to a close. The main result had been that the im- 

 portant aim must henceforth be to find the best strains in the 

 country. This made it necessary in the Competitive Cultiva- 

 tions for the coming years to name the growers of the best 

 strains. New rules for the next ten years' competitions were 

 therefore published. Every autumn (first time in 1899) a notice 

 was to be published by the State Committee on Plant Culture 

 in the daily and agricultural press inviting growers of root seeds 

 to enter, free of cost, samples for Competitive Cultivation on 

 the Experimental Stations of the State. The samples were to 

 be grown during one year only. They were to be of trade seed 

 (not of stock seed), and to represent a quantity of at least 

 10 cwts. of seed of mangels or at least 5 cwts. of seed of turnips, 



