year after year, sowing the produce of their own soil, they 

 should endeavour to obtain seed by exchange, or by pur- 

 chase, from some neighbour who farms soil of a different 

 kind to that farmed by them ; or, what is even better, 

 obtain it from some distant part of the district, in which 

 the soils are of a different character, but in which the 

 climate is somewhat similar to their own. Under a very 

 good system of agriculture, it is possible to get fair results 

 by sowing on the same land, year after year, the produce 

 of each preceding harvest ; but the practice is not to be 

 commended when it is possible to get a fair sample of seed 

 from a soil differing from that on which it is to be sown. 

 The heaviest and plumpest seed should always be selected, 

 provided it also possesses the other qualities that charac- 

 terize good seed. The fact is, we should deal with our 

 feeed as with our breeding stock select the parent which 

 possesses the qualities we wish to find in that to be pro- 

 duced. European agricultural seeds have greatly improved 

 in quality during the last ten or fifteen years, and this, to 

 a considerable extent, is due to the greater care and skill 

 now employed in their cultivation. The result is chiefly 

 to be attributed to selection, that is, to the best grains in 

 the best ears or heads only having been for years used for 

 seed. In this way, superior qualities can be stamped with 

 some degree of permanency or any variety of seed. But 

 when we have secured the seed with these higher qualities, 

 it becomes all the more necessary that the circumstances 

 ta which it must be exposed should be those of a favorable 

 character. A seed elevated in this way will yield worse 

 results when opposed by unfavorable circumstances, than 

 seed of the same kind in the unimproved state. It is a 

 well-ascertained fact that plants, like animals, can in time 

 adapt themselves to circumstances which at first they may 



