78^ PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



quality, is generally found advantageous ; but this is not always the case as to climate. 

 Thus, some of the varieties of oats, as the Angus oat, vi^hich answers well in most parts 

 of Scotland, is found not to fill in the ear, but to shrivel up after blossoming, in the south 

 of England. In like manner, the woolly-chaffed white wheats of Essex and Kent rot in 

 the ear when grown in the moist climate of Lancashire. In settling on a farm in a 

 country with which the farmer is little acquainted, he will often find it advisable to select 

 the best seed he can find in the neighbourhood, and probably to resift it and free it from 

 the seeds of weeds and imperfect grains. Particular care is requisite in selecting the 

 seed of the bean and pea, as no crop depends more on the variety being suited to the soil 

 and climate. Thus, on hot gravelly soils in the south, the late grey pea would produce 

 little haulm and no pulse ; but the early varieties, or the pearl pea, will produce a fair 

 proportion of both. 



4856. The only small seeds the farmer has to sow on a large scale, are the clovers, 

 grasses, the different varieties of turnip, and probably the mangold wurzel and carrot. 

 No expense or trouble should be spared to procure the best turnip seed ; as if that is 

 either mixed by impregnation with other varieties of the jBrassica tribe, or has been 

 raised from a degenerate small-rooted parentage, the progeny will never come to any 

 size. The same may be said of carrot or mangold seed, raised from small misshapen 

 roots. Even rape seed should be raised from the strongest and largest rooted plants, as 

 these always produce a stronger progeny. 



4857. The selection and propagation of improved aericultural seeds has till lately been very little 

 attended to. But the subject has been taken up by Mr. Sinclair of New Cross, Mr. Shirreff of Mungos 

 Wells, Mr. Gorrie of Rait, and others ; and we have little doubt some greatly improved varieties of our 

 more useful field plants will be the result. Mr. Shirreff mentions {Quar. Jour. Ag. vol. i. p. 306.), that the 

 variety of the Swedish turnip cultivated in East Lothian had, by judicious selection of the roots from 

 which seed was saved, been improved in nutritious value upwards of 300 per cent. "Potatoes and 

 Swedish turnip," Mr. Shirreff says, "appear to be susceptible of farther improvement by judicious selec- 

 tion, as well as the different grains so long cultivated in this country, and which, in almost every instance, 

 have become spurious. But whatever may be the degree of improvement of which the agricultural pro- 

 duce of the country is susceptible, by the propagation of genuine seeds of the best varieties of plants, one 

 remarkable feature of such an improvement is, that it could be carried into effect without any additional 

 investment of capital, or destruction of that already employed. It would require, in the first instance, 

 only a slight degree of observation amongst practical farmers to select the best varieties, and afterwards 

 a small exercise of patience in their propagation. The whole increase of produce obtained by such means 

 would go to support the un agricultural part of the population ; it would, in the first instance, be clear 

 gain to the occupiers, and ultimately to the owners of land. The difference of produce, arising from 

 sowing the seed of a good and a bad variety of a plant, is so great, that it does not seem inconsistent with 

 probability to state, that the gross agricultural produce of the country might be augmented, in the course 

 of a few years, through the agency of improved seeds, to the amount of seven per cent. ; and as the 

 farmer's home consumption of produce, by such means, would be increased nearly ten per cent, what an 

 enormous fund this forms for maintaining the unagricultural part of the population, and augmenting the 

 income of landholders ! 



4858. The facility of propagating genuine seeds, will become manifest from a statement of my practice. 

 In the spring of 1823, a vigorous wheat-plant, near the centre of a field, was marked out, which produced 

 63 ears, that yielded 2473 grains. These were dibbled in the autumn of the same year ; the produce of 

 the second and third seasons sown broadcast in the ordinary way ; and the fourth harvest put me in pos- 

 session of nearly forty quarters of sound grain. In the spring of this year, I planted a fine purple-top 

 Swedish turnip, that yielded (exclusively of the seeds picked by birds, and those lost in threshing and 

 cleaning the produce,) 100,296 grains, a number capable of furnishing plants for upwards of five imperial 

 acres. One-tenth of an acre was sown with the produce, in the end of July, for a seed crop, part of 

 which it is in contemplation to sow for the same purpose in July 1829. In short, if the produce of the 

 turnip in question had been carefully cultivated to the utmost extent, the third year's produce of seed 

 would have more than supplied the demand of Great Britain for a season. 



4859. Plants and animals are both organic bodies, from the germs of whose fecundating organs proceed 

 new races, which yield crops ; and thus an extensive view of improving agriculture through the agency 

 of genuine seeds embraces the propagation of live stock. Now, however important the propagation of 

 live stock may be, when considered by itself, yet, when viewed in connection with our agricultural 

 system, embracing the cultivation and improvement of the herbage which support animals, as well as 

 those plants, parts of which form the ingredients of human sustenance, it becomes less imposing. The 

 analogy subsisting between animal and vegetable life is known and acknowledged ; and it may be stated, 

 that the union of the male and female organs of different varieties of a plant, under favourable circum. 

 stances, produces a new race, which partakes of the qualities of both parents, and which is termed a 

 hybrid. Now, hybrid varieties of agricultural plants, when suffered to intermingle with the original 

 kind, disseminate their influence around them like cross-bred animals, unrestrained in their intercourse 

 with the general herd, till the character of the stock becomes changed, and consequently deteriorated or 

 improved. In either case, propagation from the best variety alone would be attended with good effects. 

 The principles of propagating vegetable and animal life are nearly the same ; but the propagation of 

 vegetables must exceed that of animals in importance, as much as the vegetable produce of the country 

 surpasses that of animals. Indeed animals may justly be considered mere machines for converting our 

 inferior herbage into nutriment of a different description ; grasses and roots are the raw materials, 

 butcher's meat the manufactured commodity." 



4860. The importance of attending to varieties of cultivated plants has been ably pomted out by 

 Mr. Bishop, at once a scientific botanist and an experienced practical gardener. " By means of 

 varieties," he says, " the produce of our gardens and fields are not only increased in a tenfold degree, 

 but the quality of the produce is improved in a still greater proportion. In them we perceive the 

 labour and assiduity of man triumphing over the sterility of unassisted nature, and succeeding in 

 giving birth to a race of beings calculated to supply his wants in a manner that original species never 

 could have done. The difference between varieties that have sprung from the same species fits them 

 for different purposes, and for different soils, situations, and climates. Some, by reason of their 

 robust natures, are winter vegetables; and others, by being early, are spring vegetables; while 

 some are in perfection in summer, and others in autumn. The fruit produced by some s fit to 

 eat when pulled off the tree ; while the fruit of others is valuable by reason of its keeping till that 

 season, when Nature rests to recruit her strength. Thus, in edible plants and fruits, we are supplied 

 with an agreeable change throughout the year, from a difference in varieties that have sprung 

 from the same species. In the earlier ages of the world, no idea could have been entertained of the 



