166 HOW TO GROW GOOD CORN. 



c. The wild grass has a trailing habit of growth ; 

 but uprightness and a longer culm is at once induced 

 by the closer contact of drilling the seeds in thick 

 rows. 



d. The cultivation of uffigilops, and especially sub- 

 jecting it to rich soil, produces the same kinds of 

 fungoid attacks as are found with wheats under like 

 circumstances, as thus : — JPaccinia graminis (mildew) 

 of the leaves and culms ; Tlredo rubigo (red rust) of the 

 chaff-scales ; Tlredo caries (smut or bunt) of the 

 grain. 



Now, all these circumstances seem to point to a 

 similarity in essential structure, and a uniformity of 

 habit somewhat remarkable in plants which at first 

 sight would strike one as being so different ; but as 

 these differences between JEgilops and any variety of 

 wheat are often all scarcely greater than is to be met 

 with on contrasting two known varieties of wheat, 

 we may agree in concluding that the evidence war- 

 rants the assumption that wheat, as a cultivated 

 cereal, has been derived from JEgilops. 



If, then, we view the wheat plant as a derivative, 

 we shall be at no loss in understanding how the 

 vast number of varieties have been brought about — 

 varieties applicable, too, to a wide range of climatal 

 conditions ; and the ease with which new forms can 

 be brought about by hybridization and selection is a 

 matter of importance, because older varieties, too often 

 repeated, are apt to degenerate both in quality of 

 grain and quantity of crop. But when we speak of 

 acclimatizing wheat, we think it would be excessively 

 difficult to make any existing form grow well in a 

 climate not congenial to it, though it might be easy 



