OF AGRICULTURE. 181 



cesses or non-successes in breeding such or such 

 varieties are quite distinct from what is to be 

 said about the method itself of selection, or the 

 method of planting wheat seeds wide apart. 

 Varieties which were bred, and which I saw 

 grown still at Manor Farm, on the windy downs 

 of Brighton may be, or may not be, suitable to this 

 or that locality. Latest physiological researches 

 give such an importance to evaporation in the 

 bringing of cereals to maturity that where evap- 

 oration is not so rapid as it is on the Brighton 

 Downs, other varieties must be resorted to and 

 bred on purpose.* I should also suggest that 

 quite different wheats than the English ought to 

 be experimented upon for obtaining prolific varie- 

 ties ; namely, the quickly-growing Norwegian 

 wheat, the Jersey " three months' wheat," or 

 even Yakutsk barley, which matures with an 

 astonishing rapidity. And now that horticul- 

 turists, so experienced in " breeding " and 

 " crossing " as Vilmorin, Carter, Sherif , W. 

 Saunders in Canada and many others are, have 

 taken the matter in hand, we may feel sure that 

 future progress will be made. But breeding is 

 one thing ; and the planting wide apart of seeds 



* Besides, Hallett'a wheat must not be sown later than the 

 first week of September. Those who may try experiments with 

 planted wheat must be especially careful to make the experi- 

 ments in open fields, not in a back garden, and to sow early. 



