174 HOW TO GROW GOOD CORN. 



soil, and another for a different kind of land. And 

 again, as some forms of plants would seem to have 

 the tendency of wearing out by long cultivation, so 

 we have the means of applying to the original source 

 of their production, and thus of commencing a new 

 generation. 



They teach us, too, the necessity of avoiding the 

 growth of the oat crop in some situations, and which in 

 the case before us is not the result of the " pigheaded- 

 ness " with which the farmer is often so thought- 

 lessly accused, but a conclusion founded in reason; 

 and if we consider how robust is the growth of the 

 wild oat, and that its support is secured by robbing 

 the grain crop with which it occurs as a weed — the 

 difficulty of separating it from the crop where it has 

 gained a footing — and, above all, that its succession 

 is secured by its seeds universally ripening a few 

 days before that of the crop with which it is mixed, 

 and the moment they are ripe they fall and become 

 self-sown,* — we can see abundant reason for whole- 

 some fear as to the introduction of cereal oats in dis- 

 tricts liable to their degeneracy. 



The annexed enlarged figure of a bunch of wild 

 oat seeds will sufficiently illustrate the changes neces- 

 sary to produce the cultivated form. 



Under cultivation, which supposes the selection, 

 saving up, and solving in a prepared bed of our seed, 



* The wild forms shed their seeds much more readily than the 

 cultivated ones, and are, besides, eai-lier in ripening, and thus much of 

 our wild seed had dropped before the other forms were fully ripe ; 

 and it much assists experiments in transmutation not to let the seeds 

 with which they are to be carried on become dead ripe. This is 

 another cultivative process. 



