304 AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURE. 



How New Sorts of Plants Are Got. Seed is the source. 

 While heredity is a well-marked principle in vegetable life, 

 there is a constant tendency to depart from the higher 

 forms got by skilful treatment, sometimes for the better, 

 oftener for the worse. The reversion may be in the form 

 of a wildsport, or a distinct reproduction from a late or 

 remote ancestor. The cabbage grower of to-day might 

 scarcely recognise in the coarse wild collard of the sea- 

 shores of northern Europe the parent of our improved 

 varieties ; nor the celery lover see his favourite in the 

 bitter weed, as found in its native habitat ; nor the epicure 

 in water melons, the bitter indigenous fibry things found 

 covering whole districts in Africa. The present develop- 

 ment in plants is the result, of selecting specimens. The 

 wild carrot of the field was experimented with not long 

 since, and after seven years of selection, high culture and 

 skilful treatment, it developed into a root quite soft, juicy 

 and palatable. Good sized and fairly edible tubers, after 

 live years of cultivation, have been produced from the wild 

 potato of Mexico. The originals of garden vegetables and 

 garden flowers were caught, tamed and improved through 

 cultivation and selection, covering longer or shorter periods 

 of time. The same work of selection and improvement 

 of good qualities in vegetables is yet going on, and mo 'e 

 earnestly than ever before. We may, possibly, be going 

 too fast, introducing many new things of little merit, rather 

 than attending to the selection and perpetuation of reliable 

 varieties that have proved suitable for this country. Seed 

 growers know that the purest crops will sometimes develop 

 very queer " sports." For instance, cabbage of apparently 

 absolute purity may produce some plants like the wild 

 collards of Denmark, which is a result of reversion alone. 

 The grower is powerless to prevent this natural physio- 

 logical freak. 



Changing the Nature of Plants. The fruiting reason 

 of plants has been changed by systematically picking off 

 the flowers which appeared before or after the time required. 

 Annual plants may be made perennial by persistently 

 destroying the flower buds as they appear. This has been 

 done with the cotton plant in Australia. Few plants 



