THE PROCESS OF TILLERING. 91 



ter-sown wheat which is that we are at present examin- 

 ing according to the mildness and severity of the season. 

 Little progress is made in cold weather, but in mild a few 

 fresh rootlets will bud from near the base of the old ones, 

 and coincident with which a bud starts from the axil of 

 the first leaf. Where the plant is hardy, each of the early 

 leaves may develop like a bud, and new roots will start 

 and strike into the soil, from which to draw up the nutri- 

 ment; so that in a short space the initiative of several 

 heads of what will be obtained from a single seed, as shown 

 in fig. 3, in which a a are the heads starting from the 

 axilla of the root-leaves, these last in the diagram being 

 turned back, so as to show the leaf-buds. We thus see 

 that in the process of tillering as the technical phrase for 

 this first development of the wheat plant puts it the two 

 organs, roots and leaves, are developed coincidently with 

 each other, a new bud requiring a new root to bring up its 

 nutriment from the soil, whilst the older roots branch out 

 into fibres and fibrils, and get further removed from the 

 centre of growth. 



3. The process of tillering does not go on under uni- 

 formly favourable circumstances. Much depends, for in- 

 stance, upon the thickness with which the seed is sown, 

 and upon the mildness of the season. Upon the question 

 of thick and thin sowing we shall have something to say in 

 its proper place; (see Vol. on Wheat, Part First of the 

 Cereal Crops ;) so we shall at present leave it, only now 

 stating that, where thick sowing is practised, the plants 

 come up thin and emaciated, and so close that there is 

 no room for their laterally branching out. Mild weather 

 in winter causes the condition in the wheat plant known 

 as winter proud, in which the upward development has 

 not been arrested ; so that its strength is given to the part 

 above ground, weakening the tillering process, which 

 enables the roots and fibres to be developed to their pro- 

 per point. Where wheat is in this condition, the beneii- 

 cial eifects of eating it down by sheep, or even cutting it 

 by the scythe, will be easily understood. We now come 



