20 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



raw-boned, half-starved animals he can find. What is 

 sauce for a goose is sauce for a gander, and if the principle 

 is good in the case of wheat, it must be also in that of all 

 other grain and seed, and of animals as well." No more 

 need be said ; if this new view is right all our scientific 

 teaching is wrong, and nothing is left us but to begin again 

 and upon a new tack. That the quality of grain or seed 

 has a very marked influence upon the produce of the crop 

 there can be no doubt, for, as one of our highest authorities 

 says, a diseased or weak parent cannot give a sound or 

 strong progeny. The following remarks, from the pen of 

 a Continental Authority on this point, will be useful 

 here. 



" Seeds which have not acquired their full develop- 

 ment, and all the qualities of the species they represent, 

 generally yield but weak products. There may be ex- 

 ceptions, but the facts which I shall cite appear very 

 conclusive. 



" Seeds that are incomplete for want of maturity cannot 

 produce complete types. Do we not find similar results 

 in animals that are too young or too old 1 ? A bull, a cow, 

 a horse, whose members are incompletely formed, cannot 

 impart what it does not possess. A decrepit animal, too 

 can it impart what it has lost? I think not. Dogs of a 

 breed whose tails have been cut for many generations are 

 born without tails. I have had pigs in a similar condition. 

 Cows without horns produce similar calves. 



" In gardens, we obtain plants deprived of certain organs ; 

 others which have them in abundance, and which end in 

 producing varieties. Thus eschalottes which have been 

 too long sown near onions, yield no longer any seed, and 

 become useless. For the same reason, some varieties of 

 potatoes have ceased flowering, because we take them up 

 for a long time before the period of flowering. Seed taken 

 from flax and hemp of great height, but not having acquired 

 their full maturity, yield very small products ; and if we 

 continue to harvest it before it is fully ripe, the plants will 

 go on diminishing in vigour and height to such an extent, 



