144 TILLEKS OF THE GKOUKD CHAP. 



Very early an Imperial Edict in China recommends 

 that specially large seeds should be sown, in order 

 that a stock of plants producing such seed might 

 be obtained. It is even said that a particular 

 kind of rice, called the imperial rice, was first 

 obtained by the Emperor Khang-hi, who, walking 

 in the fields, noticed a particularly fine rice-plant, 

 and had it brought into his garden. Here it was 

 cultivated and improved, and from this plant a 

 new variety of rice arose, which proved very hardy 

 and very useful. 



We might go on to show by quotations from 

 early English authors that the method of improving 

 plants, by selecting the seeds of the best plants and 

 sowing these, has been carried on for a long time 

 in England also. What has been already said, 

 however, is enough to show that if our cultivated 

 corn and peas are much better than those grown 

 by the first farmers in Europe the people of the 

 Stone Age then this difference is largely due to 

 the steady perseverance of generation after genera- 

 tion of cultivators. But for a reason which we 

 shall have to consider directly, it was not until the 

 eighteenth century that great progress was made. 



Some of the stories about the discovery of good 

 kinds of cultivated plants read almost like fairy- 

 tales. Thus, a farmer called Hunter, walking in 

 his fields in East Lothian, in Scotland, many years 



