170 HOW TO GROW GOOD COEN. 



The experiments about to be detailed were per- 

 formed with the Avena fatua. 



In 1851, a quantity of this plant was noticed by 

 the author on the farm of C. Lawrence, Esq., near 

 Cirencester. It was mixed with a patch of mangel- 

 wurzel which had been planted for seed; and from 

 these specimens sufficient seeds were preserved where- 

 with to sow one of our experimental plots. 



It should be noticed that the substratum was 

 forest marble, and no doubt the seeds of the oat 

 were brought with the manure by which the man- 

 gold patch was dressed. 



In the spring of 1852 a plot of two and a half 

 yards square was sown with seed which had been 

 kept during the winter — a fact which should be care- 

 fully noted, as it forms a first and most important 

 link in the chain of evidence, and constituting what 

 we term a cultivative process, inasmuch as in wild 

 growth the seeds are sow T n as soon as they become 

 ripe. 



The seeds of the first crop came up well, and on 

 ripening, towards autumn, the plants were tall and 

 robust ; the grains presented a scarcely appreciable 

 difference from the wild examples ; if any, there may 

 have been a slight tendency to an increased plump- 

 ness of grain. 



The seeds of crop No. 1 were again collected and 

 preserved throughout the winter, and sown in a 

 patch of similar size, but in a different part of the 

 garden, in the spring of 1853, repeating the process 

 with the successive crops in 1854 and 1855, with 

 slight alterations from year to year, though in some 

 examples the following tendencies seemed from the 



