NILSSON'S DISCOVERY 33 



significance of different kinds of variations for breeding 

 experiments and for scientific discussions. 



The first to discover the principle of improving cereals 

 by selection was the English breeder, Le Couteur. He lived 

 in the first part of the last century on Jersey, one of the 

 islands in the Channel, off the coast of France. Once he 

 was visited by Professor La Gasca of the University of 

 Madrid, who, far from admiring the purity and uniformity 

 of his host's cultures, pointed out to him how, in reality, 

 they consisted of a mixture of more or less easily recognizable 

 types. He suggested the idea that these types might have a 

 different share in the harvest of the whole field, some of 

 them being probably more and others less productive than 

 the average. In a field of wheat, he succeeded in distin- 

 guishing 23 forms, and in other cultures similar indica- 

 tions of variability were observed. After his departure, Le 

 Couteur saved the ears of the indicated types separately, 

 and sowed their grains in small field plots in order to com- 

 pare their productivity. He does not seem to have had any 

 theoretical view concerning the causes or the nature of the 

 observed differences, but simply assumed that the progeny 

 of his selected plants would be like the parents. On this 

 point he soon found himself justified by the results of his 

 experiments. He had produced a group of new types of 

 which some proved better and others less valuable than the 

 ordinary sorts of his fields. The best new varieties, isolated 

 in this way, he then multiplied, and afterwards put them 

 upon the market. One of them is still grown in England 

 and the northern parts of France on a tolerably large scale. 

 It is a kind of wheat called "Bellevue de Talavera" and it 

 is known to be a very pure and uniform type. It is so 

 uniform that it does not afford any deviations by which it 

 can be subjected to further selection, and all trials in this 

 direction have been in vain. Many breeders of later times 



