farmers' miscellany. 293 



would do much to improve the seed. In saving seed, that which 

 is the most prolific, and which ripens earliest, should be chosen. 

 By this means much may be gained. 



Mr. Loudon states that in the spring of 1823, he selected a 

 wheat plant, from near the centre of a field, which produced sixty- 

 three ears, and yielded two thousand seven hundred and forty-three 

 Trains. These he planted, and the fourth harvest brought him 

 .hree hundred and twenty bushels of sound grain. Any farmer, 

 n this way, from one seed of a good kind, could in a few years 

 •aise enough to sow his w^hole farm. The same author in this con- 

 lection, makes the following statement, showing the advantage of 

 •hoosing the most prolific seed : 



" The number of fertile joints in the spike of the wheat gener- 

 .lly cultivated, varies from eighteen to twenty, and the inhabitants 

 if Great Britain and Ireland amount to about the same number of 

 aillions ; therefore, as the wheat produced in those islands has 

 ■een of late years sufficient, or nearly sufficient, to supply the in- 

 .abitants thereof with bread, it is evident that a variety with two 

 dditional fertile joints, and equal in other respects to the varieties 

 t present in cultivation, would, when it became an object of gene- 

 al culture, afford a supply of bread to feed two millions of souls 

 Irithout even another acre being brought under cultivation, or an 

 dditional drop of sweat from the brow of the husbandman." En- 

 yclopedia of Agriculture ^ Art. 4861. 



DEGENERACY FROM BAD TILLAGE. 



, The evils of bad cultivation do not consist in bad crops alone, 

 i'here are other and still greater evils to be avoided, and which 

 jiould be a great inducement to every farmer, to use any effort to 

 erfect himself in his art. And not the least of them is degene- 

 icy in the character of the plant cultivated. In this respect, if 

 I no other, there is a sort of analogy between the animal and the 

 igetable. An animal of any of the best and most improved 

 eeds, if badly cared for when young — if scantily or insufficiently 

 pplied with food, and exposed to all kinds of weather, and lefl 



