WHEAT VARIETIES 65 



inate much between English wheats, all of which are 

 comparatively weak, until they would pay almost as 

 high a price for Rivet as for wheats like Rough Chaff, 

 which had hitherto been the strongest available. In 

 consequence the cultivation of Rivet, with its heavy 

 yields and powerful straw, began to revive ; the stocks 

 are, however, very impure, and on this farm we were 

 shown the early stage of a pure line strain originally 

 selected for its specially vigorous growth. Professor 

 Percival, of Reading, has also raised a pure line strain 

 of Rivet up to the marketable stage ; so Rivet wheat, 

 despite its antiquity, despite the awns which make the 

 chaff unusable and even the straw disliked by stockmen, 

 and despite its coarseness, seems in for a new lease of 

 life. After all, yield is the big factor in the value of a 

 crop, whatever its nature ; the purchaser is always harp- 

 ing upon the virtues of quality, and quality also appeals 

 greatly to the pride of the farmer, but fine quality should 

 earn a much larger difference in price than usually 

 prevails in order to make up for the larger yield of 

 many of the so-called coarse varieties. Thus the uni- 

 versally-grown wheats Square Head's Master, Stand 

 Up, Standard Red, Brovvick are big yielders and 

 stiff-strawed ; Archer barley is displacing the Chevallier 

 varieties because it will generally yield more ; and the 

 apple growers are regrafting their Cox's orange pippins 

 with common kitchen sorts, even though the market 

 will pay 3d. apiece for well-grown apples of the choicer 

 variety. On this same farm several acres were given 

 up to growing sweet peas for seed under contract the 

 field, with its brilliant bands of variegated colour, 

 afforded a pleasant contrast to the somewhat monot- 

 onous Essex landscape. In our climate the sweet pea 

 harvest is not too trustworthy in the crop we saw, for 

 example, most of the early flowers and some even of 



