CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



bred cereals, as these are descended from a line of ances- 

 tors, " each of which was the most vigorous of its year," and 

 possessed, moreover, the combination of those 1 good quali- 

 ties by which they were enabled, during the period of selec- 

 tion, to withstand the vicissitudes of the season. Mr. 

 Hallett gives a striking illustration of these truths, as he 

 maintains them to be, in the following. In these experi- 

 ments " the kind of seed, the land, and the system of cul- 

 ture employed, were precisely the same for every plant 

 for four consecutive years, neither was there any manure 

 used nor any artificial means of fostering the plants re- 

 sorted to." 



TABLE SHOWING THE IMPORTANCE OF EACH ADDITIONAL 

 GENERATION OF SELECTION. 



Thus, by repeated selection alone the length of the ears 

 has been doubled, their contents nearly trebled, and the 

 " tillering " power of the seed increased fivefold. Mr. 

 Hallett also points out that he at first started by selecting 

 from accidentally large ears, in the supposition that these 

 would give a much finer produce the next year ; but he 

 found that the quality of the grain was so bad as to be un- 

 saleable, and this result was the invariable one of all trials 

 in this direction. He therefore adopted a plan which we 

 think was the most philosophical of the two namely, 

 selecting an ear which gave the finest quality of grain, and 

 trusted to the power of the selecting principle to increase 

 the size and development of the ears. Mr. Hallett chose, 

 in the first instance, the " nursery" wheat, the finest red 



