36—1846.] THE 
AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 
601 
SEED WHEAT. 
ED STRAW WHITE WHEAT, AND HOPE- 
TOUN WHITE WHEAT — Varieties whose excellence 
has been tested and acknowledged by very many farmers both 
in England and Scotland,—for Sale at 
WHITFIELD FARM, WOTTON-UNDER-EDGE, 
^ GLOUCESTERSHIRE, 
Price 60s. per quarter; sacks 2s, each. Orders must be accom- 
panied by a remittance or a reference. JOHN MORTON. 
GUANO, &c. : 
ARK FOTHERGILL begs to offer the following 
MANURES on the best terms, viz : 
GUANO, PERUVIAN and AFRICAN, direct from Import 
Warehouses. 
PATAGONIAN and SALDANHA BAY. Ditto. 
80 ASH, for destruction of Wireworm. 
SUPERPHOSPHATE OF LIM (See Royal Agri. Soc. 
Journal, Vol. vi. Pa 
GYPSUM, (Pure Sulphate of Lime). 
BONE DUST and BONE POWDER. 
SULPHURIC ACID. ROOAL. 
PETRE SALT and AGRICULTURAL SALT for Composts. 
SILICATES of SODA and POTASH, and all other Manures, 
o. 3n reet. 
nt for DINGLE’S HAND SEED-DIBBLE. 
PERUV IAN AND BOLIVIAN GUANO ON 
SALE, BY THE ONLY IMPORTERS, 
A NY GIBBS anD SONS, LONDON; 
Wm. JOSEPH MYERS aw» CO., LIVERPOOL; 
And by their Agents, 
GIBBS, BRIGHT, anv CO., LIVERPOOL and BRISTOL; 
COTSWORTH, POWELL, AND PRYOR, LONDON, 
To protect themselves against the injurious consequences of 
using inferior and spurious purchasers are recom- 
mended to apply only to Dealers of: established character, or to 
the above-named Importers, who will supply the article in any 
Wana at their fixed prices, delivering it from the Import 
Warehou 
Ditto, 
ECONOMICAL, EFFECTUAL, AND DURABLE 
ROOFING 
BY HER MAJESTY’S ROYAL LETTERS PATENT. 
(RoecoNS PATENT ASPHALTE ROOFING 
FELT, with which the Committee Rooms of the Houses 
of Parliament are entirely covered. The above Material has 
R.A., ; has been used for several 
years at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Gardens, Chiswick ; 
the Swiss Gardens, Shoreham, Sussex; on the Duke of Buc- 
Cleuch’s, and the Marquis of Anglesey's Property, &c. &e. and 
(under slate) the Royal Agricultural Society's House, Hanover- 
Square; its advantages are—CHEAPNESS, LIGHTNESS, 
DURABILITY,and ECONOMY. Bein on-Conductor, it 
has been proved an efficient ** Protective Material” to Plants, 
PRICE, ONE PENNY. PER SQUARE FOOT. 
Samples and Testimonials sent by Post on applicati 
tention. Ifthe object of agriculture be the supply | 
of human food, we cannot consider that to be the 
most important branch of it which merely provides 
hines for the ical conversion of one sort 
of food into another. 1t is to the produce of the 
land that we must look as either immediately or in- 
directly indicating the excellence of our agricul- 
ture. And improved breeds of animals have never 
yet conferred a high character for cultivation on the 
districts in which they originated. If one were 
asked to point out the counties of Great Britain in 
which thé best farming prevails—those whose sur- 
face in proportion to its natural fertility has been 
made capable of supporting the greatest number of 
inhabitants—Hereford would not be named, nor 
Durham, nor Leicester, nor Sussex. 
Perfect farming will prevail when land shall have 
been made profitably to yield the maximum of pro- 
duce ; and this is to be effected— 
1. By the proper cultivation of the soil. 
2. By a selection of the best plants. 
3. By a selection of the best animals as a means 
of converting some of these plants into human food. 
"These are the fields on one or other of which all 
agricultural improvers are at work; and this, we 
contend, is the order of their relative importance. 
An influence exerted in the first of them is felt 
through all the others ; one acting in the last is felt 
nowhere else. 
The first of these departments and the third have 
hitherto monopolised the efforts and attention of 
improvers. We wish we could divert a portion of 
their energy and perseverance for the benefit of the 
second. 
Tue Improvement or ÅGRICULTURAL PLANTS is 
a subject of the highest importance. It is as pos- 
sible as the improvement of agricultural animals, 
and more valuable results will attend it; but 
hitherto scarcely anything has been done to affect 
it. Why do our national societies not more 
earnestly direct the attention of their members to 
this subject? Prizes should be offered with the 
view of exciting this attention, just as rewards are 
so beneficially offered in order to stimulate the 
efforts of sheep and cattle breeders. The means 
HOMAS JOHN CRoGGON. 
8, Lawrence Pountney-hill, Cannon-street, London. 
The Agricultural Gasette. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1846. 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
t. 91 Highland and Agricultural Society, at 
Wepwranay, ep 
THURSDAY, — 10 nverness. 
Troxspay, = 1o+Agricnlsural Imp. Soc. of Ireland. 
Tavnspax, Z 17—Agriculvaral Imp. Boe; ofIrelana; , 
LOCAL SOCIETIES. 
Flax Society, Belfi E. Soffolk—P: 
ax Boole ings Co.—Arran—Nithedale—E, Cumberland, 
MERS’ CLUBS. 
Sept. 7—Markethill—St. Austell— | Sept, 8—Jedburgh— Watford 
"Wickham-market — Gieat | — 11—Northallerton—Halesworth 
— Newark — West — Wadebridge 
k-si — 15--Brom»grove—Plympton St, 
Mary 
*.* Wr must beg those of our readers who preserve their 
copies of this Journal to refer to their last week's number, and 
with pen and ink make the following corrections in page 585. 
Tn col. b, at line 39 from the top, for “ Wheat” write “what”; 
and, in the 11th line below that, for “near” write “met.” These 
typographical errors have completely obliterated our meaning. 
In the former case our question was ** Well! but agricultural 
improvement of what?” i.e., What is the condition of soil 
referred to as being incapable of profitable improvement? We 
are unwillingly obliged to postpone for a week the further con- 
Sideration of this subject. 
Wuar pains have been taken, and money spent, 
and enthusiasm exhibited, in the IMPROVEMENT or 
THE Breep or our Domestic ÁNIMALS? Read 
the account given by Professor Low* of the labours 
of Rozerr BaxewEeLt and Joun Errwaw, of 
Cuarrrs Corrie and Bensamin Tomkins. How 
fully, too, the usefulness of their efforts has been 
appreciated! Think of the sum of three thousand 
two hundred pounds being given for the hire for 
one season of ten rams; of the enormous prices 
which Cuarres Corzine obtained at the sale of 
his celebrated herd—one thousand guineas for a 
single bull! ‘This is a branch of the farmer's busi- 
ness which all must acknowledge has been most 
liberally patronised. And it deserves the interest 
which it has excited. By means of the improved 
animals it has given us a pound of beef or of mut- 
ton may now be manufactured out of less than 
two-thirds of the food formerly required. The 
farmer is thus able to make much more of his green 
Crops than he formerly could. This is certainly a 
very important consideration, and no one can dis- 
approve of due attention being paid to the means 
y which such a result has been obtained. 
, But what we may and do blame is the compara- 
tive neglect which has been the lot of subjects 
having equal or higher claims upon the farmer's at- 
cre A] 
* Low on the Domesticated Animals. 
of improv t in the forme» case are precisely the 
same as those put in exercise in the latter. 
Hybridising, or cross-breeding, special reference 
being had to the qualities of the parents which it is 
desired either to perpetuate or destroy, is in both 
cases the method by which we seek to improve the 
character of a breed. In horticulture this has long 
been known and applied ; in agriculture, whether 
known or not, it has not till very lately been suc- 
cessfully made use of. 
Not long ago, at one of the weekly meetings of 
the English Agricultural Society, Mr. Maux», of 
Bromsgrove, exhibited some specimens of Wheat 
(the first of their kind) which he had grown from 
seed artificially ripened in this manner. We had 
the pleasure of seeing these specimens, and are thus 
able to attest the complete success in certain in- 
stances of Mr. Mavunn’s experiments. Each ear 
was panied by speci of the varieties 
from which it had been procured, and it exhibited 
in all cases characters intermediate between those 
of its parents, united with that greater vigour of 
growth, which it appears, in the vegetable as in the 
animal world, is the result of a first cross. Mr. 
MauNr's experience, we believe, extends over but 
a very few years, but it is sufficient to warrant high 
expectations of good resulting from an intelligent 
and persevering application of the methods which 
he has thus been the first to adopt. We hope that 
the English Agricultural Society may be induced 
to devise some mode in which its influence may be 
usefully applied to the furtherance of this important 
means of agricultural improvement. 
We conclude with an extract from a letter with 
which we have been favoured by Mr. MavxD upon 
this subject :— 
“The subject involves very extensive inquiry ; 
hybridising without an aim at some specific object 
would be like visiting the mountains of North and 
South Wales, and taking the first ewe from one 
and ram from the other that present themselves, in 
order to obtain an improved breed of sheep. The 
fact is, that in producing new varieties of Wheat, 
the interests of the farmer, miller, and baker, should 
be considered, and to these we may add the caprice 
of the public, which inclines it so decisively to a 
preference of bread that is very white—a whim 
which is administered to by such dainties as alum, 
soda, and plaster of Paris. The breeder of Wheat 
will find as many objects to aim at obtaining as the 
breeder of cattle, and it is not Wheat alone but 
other agricultural plants also that present capa- 
bilities of improvement; the subject, however, 
demands much time and attention, and as Dr 
Linptey justly observes, ‘If the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society were to take up this matter in good 
earnest important results might be obtained.’ By 
the bye, as regards the Royal Agricultural Society, 
js it not much to be desired that all our country 
farmers’ societies and clubs should be attached to 
it? I do not mean as parasites, like the Mistletoe, 
abstracting from, and living upon the ‘circulating 
medium’ of its foster-parent, but like the Ivy on 
the Oak, taking a lofty position from a powerful 
patron. 
* Amongst a few plants in the flower garden, I can 
almost to a certainty produce hybrid varieties be- 
tween two species, but the same facility of effecting 
this does not exist with the cereal plants. In some 
instances not more than 1 in 10 of my experiments 
have been completely satisfactory, notwithstanding 
I invariably extract the anthers ; and if I suspect 
the escape of a single grain of pollen near the 
stigma, I reject that flower altogether as one ior 
experiment. It is not only necessary to guard 
against the fertilisation of the ovary from its own 
anthers only, but it is requisite that all those anthers 
which are situate on the same ear above the ovaries, 
artificially fertilised, should be extracted, or they 
will pour out their pearly globes to the relief of 
your widowed feathery stigmas, and disappoint 
your hopes. 
* More than ordinary care is taken in Nature that 
the Grass tribe (which includes Wheat) shall be 
fertilised by its own pollen, the Wheat breeder 
must, therefore, be proportionately diligent. 
* An opinion prevails that wet weather injures 
Wheat whilst it is in blossom, by washing off its 
pollen. This opinion is erroneous, inasmuch as 
both in wet aud very hot weather fertilisation is 
carried on within the chaff. Often in moist weather 
have I felt much interested, when, wanting pollen, 
I have held the straw and bottom of the ear in my 
warm hand for two or three minutes watching for a 
crop of anthers. Quickly the ripest of them, stimu- 
lated by the warmth, would peep out from their 
seclusion, and gently rising, give me the chance of 
capturing them ere they scattered their contents 
over the expectants beneath them. Sometimes on 
leaving these excited ears, and returning to them 
after 10 or 15 minutes, I have found several anther 
cases as empty as balloons, dancing to the breeze, 
as if joyous that in my absence they had scattered 
every pearl they possessed.” 
THE CATTLE SHOWS AT AGRICULTURAL 
MEETINGS. 
Ix the Agricultural Gazelte for August 15, page 556, 
a correspondent signing himself “ Punchelod” objects 
to your report of the Newcastle Show, because of the 
great prominence you have given the discussions and 
implements over the stock. After the concise, but con- 
elusive manner in which you have settled his objections, 
it would be useless for me to attempt a refutation of his 
arguments; but perhaps I may be allowed to make a 
few observations. Your correspondent endeavours to 
prove that the show of stock rivals, or rather sur- 
passes in imp the exhibition of impl for 
several reasons, but principally because it is more 
popular. He observes that “he has known agricul- 
tural societies dwindle away in all cases where the 
show of animals was not made the most prominent 
portion of the meeting, and this would appear evident 
from the difference observable in the attendance on 
the Thursday at Newcastle, as well as at all the pre- 
vious meetings of the English Society, above all the 
other days.” I grant that the animals attracted a far 
greater concourse of persons than the implements did ; 
but does that fact in any way prove the former to be 
more beneficial to agriculture than the latter? Does it 
net rather show that farmers in general are much less 
familiar with the subject of agricultural mechanics, 
than with the fattening of cattle? Our favourite 
subject is generally that with which we are best ac- 
quainted ; and this is the reason why the tillers of the 
soil will crowd round the overfed animals, eyeing their 
points and handling their flesh, rather than examine 
the mechanism of a machine. The farmer has been 
perfeetly familiar with various breeds of sheep, oxen, 
swine, and horses, from his boyhood ; he has studied 
their habits and management all his lifetime ; and, 
therefore, it is no wonder they should be the selectest 
objects that ever attract his admiration, or engage his 
taste. He knows what the difficulties of breeding are 5 
he has, perhaps, selected his own stock, according to 
his best judgment of size, shape, and quality, singling 
out the choicest specimens from other flocks and herds 
with the most accurate discrimination and the nicest 
care; and, therefore, it is no marvel that he should be 
so interested and gratified by an assemblage of animals, 
the most perfect models yet produced by like skill, at- 
tention, and perseverance. 
Implements, on the other hand, are the favourite ob- 
jects of the mechanie's contemplation. He has to think, 
contrive, and construct various machines; therefore, 
he can admire the ingenuity of new mechanism, and 
appreciate the difficulties overcome. Thusit is, “ every 
man to his taste." The maker of implements does not 
discern the beauties of the animals; the farmer does 
not-comprehend the merits of the machinery. But, as 
I before observed, although the principles of agricul- 
tural mechanies-are not the most conspicuous objects 
