OF ROOT CULTIVATION. 25 



Now had we been going to grow the best of seed, 

 we should of course have selected the best-shaped 

 roots for our purpose ; but in this case, as will be 

 seen, the most viciously formed examples were 

 chosen. 



33oth of the examples whose portraits we have here 

 given, were planted in our private garden (where, it 

 is right to say, they were the only seeding spe- 

 cimens), in due time their seed ripened, which was 

 carefully collected and stored. 



Early in April, 1861, these seeds were sown in our 

 experimental plots, without manure, in the following 

 order : — 



Plot a. Seed obtained from the malformed parsnip, 

 fig. 9. 



b. Seed of Student parsnip of the same year 



as that of plot a. 



c. Seed of malformed swede. 



The plot b was sown by way of comparison, and we 

 can only regret that no plot of good swede seed was 

 sown with the same object, and we must, therefore, 

 compare with a piece of swedes in an adjoining field. 

 The following are the tabulated results : — 



TABLE OF RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS. 



lb. 



Plot a. 75 roots, forming the crop ") ">• °z- 



from seed of the malformed > 7 4 



parsnip (fig. 8) weighed in all ... ) 



Plot b. 63 roots forming the crop 



from seed of good Student pars- 14 



nips 



