May 25, 1882] 



NATURE 



91 



America ; a raper of much interest by Dr. Konrad Jarz on the 

 ice caves of Frain in Moravia ; a short account, from the Russian 

 of Fetisoff, of the |a>hil Kul or Kulduk Lake in Central Asia 

 (40 45 N,, 76 42' E.) ; and some account of the Fiji Islands, 

 to accompany an excellent new map of the group. 



BARON NORDENSKJOLD has published the first volume of the 

 "Scientific Results of the V/ga Expedition." It covers Soo 

 pages with maps and tables. Besides the papers on the Aurora, 

 of which we have already given an account, there are papers on 

 the Health of the Expedition, the Colour Sense of the Chukchis, 

 on the Botanical Collections, Meteorological Observations, the 

 Invertebrata of the Arctic Seas, and other matters, by the various 

 members of the expedition. 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. have published a sixpenny 

 edition of Waterton's famous " Wandering- in Sou'h America," 

 wirh the biographical introduction and explanatory index of the 

 Rev. J. G. Wood, and too illustrali inf. 



CAPT. BURTON and Commander Cameron have returned to 

 England from their visit to the West Coast of Africa. 



The Geological Society of St.ckholm will send a party to 

 Spitzbtrgen this summer for the geological survey of that island. 

 The two members selected for this object are the well-known 

 geologi-ts, Dr. Nothorst and Baron de Geer, who will leave 

 Dromheim on June I in the whaling smack Bjona for their 

 tion. 



FOOD-PLANT IMPROVEMENT ' 



*T"HE food question maybe divided into two put-. I. Its 

 luctim (raw material). 2. Its preparation when pro- 

 duced. It is my intention to consider the first part only— food 

 production. This, again, seems naturally to divide itself into : 

 I. Plant-food. 2. Animal food. And again, I propose to 

 speak mainly of the first alooe, alluding only incidentally to 

 animal-food, upon which I will commence by making what 

 remarks I have to make in order to clear the ground for the 

 consideration o[ plant-food, the subject upon which I have been 

 invited to address you. The improvement effected in the pro- 

 duction of animal-fond by the careful breeding or long repeated 

 selection of sheep, cattle, and swine is so well known as to 

 render it quite unnecessary to occupy much of our time in its 

 consideration ; I will ordy adduce one or two striking illustra- 

 tions t > show the kind of change which has been thereby accom- 

 plished. There i.; very strong ground for believing that the 

 celebrated improved breed of shorthorn cattle is descended from 

 a race originally black. Now black seems to have been in the 

 eyes of all the best breeders of it a col I rid of or 



wiped out, and this most certainly 1 as been effected, for no 

 single instar.ee of it i- now to be found. The improvement in 

 the outward form of the animals has been car. 

 breeders' ideal of perfection. These are external changes. 

 Early in the history of Bhorthorns the breeders in Vorl, shire 

 made the production of milk their chief point, while those in 

 Durham saved for breeding purposes the progeny of th 

 only which showed the greatest tendency to lay on meat, ami 

 the result is the " Improved Durham," the pride and glory of 

 the modern cattle show, but which are very poor milker.- ; while 

 the "York" shorthorn is synonymous with a cow specially 

 productive of milk. These are internal changes effected in 

 animals by selection. When we turn to plants what do we find ? 

 The first thing, aud which is apparent to everyone, is that each 

 produces "fruit after its kind." But close observation shows 

 something more than thi--, viz. that, although each produces 

 "after ks kind," no two plants of any kind are abs iluteiy alike. 

 I speak not of monstrosities, of which the characteristics are not 

 heritable, but of that ever present tendency throughout nature to 

 variation, of which the horticulturist has availed him elf. These 

 variations, of which we can 1 ro t through the great principle of 

 inheritance are generally slight, so much s ., indeed, as to be 

 quite inappreciable by the untrained eye or hand, but they are, 

 nevertheless, striking enough to one competent t} ob.erve them. 

 1 will give a familiar illustration of this. Nothing can well 

 seem more alike to an ordinary person than the sheep composing 

 a well-bred flock, but the shepherd knows them all apart as 

 w ell as if each had a name. To him they are no more " all just 

 alike " than are the members of his ow n family. That these 

 differences, apparently so slight, can be practically availed of, 

 1 Paper read t-y Major Hallelt at lire Brighton Health Congress. 



the existing improved breeds of sheep prove beyond doubt. I 

 have already said that no two plants are absolutely alike. Of 

 any two, then, one must be (in the direction of the difference 

 between them) superior to the other. '1 his iact, coupled with 

 the principle of inheritance, is the very key-note of all possible 

 plant-improvement. But, it may be asked, do plants offer 

 opportunity of improvement by breeding equal to that presented 

 by animals? Surely much greater. A cow or ewe produces at 

 a birth one (or two) only — a single grain of wheat has produced 

 a plant, the ears upon which contained Sooo grains all capable 

 of reproduction. Now we can plant all these, and of the 

 resultant Sooo plants reserve only the best one of all to per- 

 petuate the race, rejecting every other. Can anything approach- 

 ing such a choice as this be afforded any breeder of cattle or 

 sheep, no matter how extensive his herd or flock ? 'Ihe advan- 

 tage on the side of the wheat becomes almost infinite when it is 

 considered that in the case of the above animals three years 

 (instead of one) are required for each reproduction. 



Before giving a few examples of results already obtained in 

 cereal development, I will mention analogous improve 

 tained in vines and in beetroot cultivated for sugar. Many 

 years ago an old friend from Piedmont, having a relative a vine 

 grower in Italy, carried back with him from here a sufficient 

 knowledge of my system of selection to enable him to explain 



S >me seven years after, upon my fri 

 visiting lie, he t >ld me that his relative, knowing him to be in 

 I.ondm, had written to ask him if he could arrange there for the 

 disp isal of his wine, and that he, without reading this letter 

 through, at once replied in the affirmative. This he did, as he 

 knew the small extent of his relative's vineyard — some 12 acres. 

 " You may judge of my astonishment," said this gentleman to 

 me, "when upon leading his letter to the end, 1 found that he 

 had, with iut havi lie extent of his vineyard, three 



times the quantity of wine he formerly produced, and this simply 

 through having followed the plan of selection I had suggested 

 to him." The cultivation of beetroot for sugar is a very impor- 

 tant one, and any increase in the percentage of sugar contaiued 

 in it is of very high value. The following from Toronto, 

 Canada, appeared in the Gardener's Chronicle and Agricultural 

 Gazette of March 22, 1873, under the head of "Foreign Corre- 

 spondence" : — "The most vital point, however, of the beetroot 

 grower i- the quality of the seed he uses ; when beets were first 

 grown for ugar, 5 per cent, of sugar wis the a nount obtained, 

 now 15 per cent, is obtainable in favourable instances. This 

 has been attained entirely by the improvement of the pedigree 

 principle of the seed. The quality of richness in the r ot was 

 attained by Vilmorin in the following manner: — Each root is a 

 perfect plant, and therefore, in the examination of each root for 

 the production of seed, the quality of it had to be ascertained. 

 For this purpose, Vilmorin had a set of most delicate instruments 

 made for the determination of specific gravity, an 1 he found 

 that the specific gravity was indicative of the sugar contained. 

 The cup- he used were no larger than a lady's thimble, and the 

 saccharometer or measure of specific gravity equally small. The 

 roots were first selected according to the best ordinary rules, 

 then a small portion of each root was punched out of it in such 

 a part as to injure as little as possible its future growth ; the 

 pieces were reduced to pulp, and the juice was extracted. All 

 the roots which did not yield juice up to a certain standard were 

 rejected, whilst those which reached the standard were planted 

 for seed ; the roots produced from this seed were fouuJ to be 

 constantly increasing in richness, and a few years of the process 

 produced the great percentage of sugar which is now attained." 

 I may here mention in reference to the foregoing that I had, so 

 long ago as 1S60, come to the conclusion that vigour of vegetable 

 growth was identical with the power of supporting animal life, 

 and that specific gravity was the measure of both. The difficulty 

 of determining the specific gravity of a grain of wheat without 

 impairing its vital vigour was, however, found insurmountable. 



1 will now refer to re.-ults obtained in cereals by selectijn, 

 taking wheat as the illustration. The chief points to attain are 

 vigour of growth, hardiness, productiveness, and quality, and 

 these have become as permanent characteristics of the pedigree 

 cereals as are the good points of a thoroughbred animal, and 

 repr iduce themselves as surely. I begin with a report from near 

 Penh, Western Australia, in 1S62, nineteen years ago. "The 

 English wheat (Ilallett's) sown before I came, produced when 

 drilled 29 bushels per acre ; and when dibbled, 35 bushels per 

 acre. The average crops about here are under ten ; ours were 

 six ; and our neighbours' opposite 4§ bushels per acre. The 



