ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF PLANTS. 439 



identical, they are yet sufficiently so for practical purposes. 

 In this instance we have supposed a case of selection 

 for a prolific tendency, but the same principle may be 

 applied to any other desired improvement, as quality of 

 grain, earliness or lateness of ripening, quantity or quality 

 of straw, and so on. Or, to take other instances from 

 agriculture. The farmer observes among his Mangel 

 Wurzel a plant remarkable for the large size of the root 

 and the small size of the top ; among his turnips a root 

 that has stood the frost uninjured, while others surrounding 

 it have been materially damaged ; he selects the Mangel 

 with the view of increasing the weight of his crop 

 without drawing too much from his land, the turnip 

 for the sake of obtaining a hardier race of this valu- 

 able root, and follows up the process of cultivation al- 

 ready described until he fixes the recognised and coveted 

 features. 



As with the agriculturist, so with the market gardener, 

 whose superior vegetables are in great part due to the 

 judicious selection of the individual plants from which he 

 saves his seed. Perhaps half-a-dozen of the whitest and 

 closest heads of white broccoli are selected off many acres 

 as the source of the crop for the ensuing year ; and other 

 vegetables and flowers as onions, lettuces, stocks, &c. 

 are subjected to the same careful process of selection. 



To continue: our seed-growers work on the same 

 principle, although in place of leaving a few only of the 

 best, the quantity of seed they require compels them to 

 rest satisfied with eradicating a few of the worst only, and 

 the value of their crop of seeds is, or should be, in propor- 

 tion to the thoroughness of the selection, or as the growers 

 term it, the purity of the stock. If in the bill dealing with 

 the adulteration of seeds now before Parliament a clause 

 could have been inserted ensuring the purity of the stock, 

 I should have considered that by far the most important 

 part of the measure. 



I have intentionally given prominence to the above 



