92 



NA TURE 



{May 25, 1! 



largest ear produced 113 grains. The greatest number of ears 

 on one 'stool' was 72." And next I give the last report received 

 of the same wheat, from New Zealand, published in the Otago 

 Daily Times of June 3, 1S81 :— " We have been shown two 

 samples of wheat grown by Mr. M. C. Orbell, at Waikouaitai, 

 and we do not remember to have seen any to compare with them 

 in this country. They are known as Hallett's Pedigree wheat, 

 Hunter's White, and Original Red. The yield exceeded any- 

 thing ever grown in the district befoie. Mr. Orbell sowed 1} 

 bushels upon one acre, and the yield was 72 bushels (or nine 

 quarters) of good marketable wheat. Many of the plants con 

 sisted of over 90 ears, some of which contained as many as 

 132 grains each. Hallett's Pedigree white Canadian oats, intro- 

 duced by the same importers, have, we understand, been culti- 

 vated by Mr. Shannon, of Conical Hills Station, with the same 

 success as the wheat grown by Mr. Orbell." Thus, after 18 

 years (not without further selection, but the selection, having 

 been continued annually at Brighton throughout the interval), the 

 same wheat is found not only to have maintained, but to have 

 further developed its vigour of growth, producing over "00'' 

 ears (instead of 72 ears) upon a plant, with 132 grain-; (instead 

 of 113) in an ear. In England, 187(1, 105 ears on a plant con- 

 tained more than Scoo grains. (The average number of grains 

 in an ordinary ear is 22 only.) From E^sex in the same year as 

 the date of the report first given, a crop of the same wheat 

 was reported of 27 quarters on three acres, or nine quarters per 

 acre, exactly the same quantity as that just given as obtained 

 eighteen years later in New Zealand ! Can illustration further go 

 that there is no deterioration if only the selection be continued ? 

 Here is another exp rience in another year and country : — M. 

 Tiehonnais, editor of La Revue Agricolt tie I 'Angleterre, writes 

 October 9, J.S65, from Brassieres, France— "lam now staying 

 here, a large farm where your wheat is extensively cultivated. 

 The average this last harvest was' at the rate of seven quarters to 

 the English acre ; the average of the other sorts in the same 

 district did not exceed three quarters per acre." 



Thus far as to vigour of growth and productivene-s. I will 

 now give examples of the other two points named, hardiness and 

 quality. Report of the Minister of the Interior, Belgium: "I 

 c mtinue to sow the varieties of wheat improved by Hallett, 

 above all the ' Red,' and ' Victoria ' white. These varieties are 

 very hardy. During the winter 1875 and 1876 many of our 

 varieties of wheat have been de-troyed by frost. The Hallett 

 Red has successfully withstood the frost. It has been the same 

 with the Victoria. On the other hand, the variety 'Galand' 

 has been completely destroyed, not a single plant of it left. We 

 have seen many fields of even our ' little red ' variety, very hardy, 

 which have greatly suffered." Lastly, as an example of sustained 

 quality, a report from Linlithgow, Scotland, dated November 

 23, 1878 : " I have again, making now ten years in succession, 

 had the honour of topping the Edinburgh market with your 

 Hunter's white wheat. I sent some of your barley to Australia, 

 and in a few years it spread and gave immense satisfaction." 

 The pedigree cereals having been grown in upwards of forty 

 different countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Aus- 

 tralasia, it is, of course, impossible to give, in such a paper as 

 this, any idea of how w idely extended has been the success of 

 selection as exemplified in them, but I may mention that, in 

 acknowledgement of that success, the Minister of Agriculture at 

 St. Petersburg placed at my disposal the collection of all the 

 agricultural colleges .,[ Russia ; and the Minister for Hungary 

 sent through the Austrian Embassy at Vienna, and published, a 

 most flattering communication showing results obtained by his 

 Government by adopting my system. From Italy, Holland, 

 Denmark, and Sweden, I have received similar acknow ledg- 

 ments. The Government of the United States published my 

 system in e.xtcnso in the report for 1874 of the Department of 

 Agriculture. Tne English Government, too, as will presently 

 be seen, did me the honour to appropriate and apply my system 

 in India. 



A very practical acknowledgement has been made by Ies- dis- 

 tinguished persons at home. When I commenced my system, 

 now nearly twenty-five years ago, nothing had been done or 

 attempted in the matter of the systematic improvement of food 

 plants. One searches the adverti. ing columns of the new spapers 

 of that day without finding any of those announcements with 

 which they now positively bristle, of seeds of all kinds, "of re- 

 peated s'-lection," of "the latest selection," &c. But now 

 many persons and firms, supposed to be of the highest respecta- 

 bility, and among them, as is always the case, some who ridi- 



culed my work at the outset unblu«hingly try to identify their 

 productions with my own, a sure and certain evidence that the 

 reputation resulting from my system of selection has a very 

 practical value. 



In the case of the potato, next to the cereals in importance as 

 a food plant, I have also applied my system, starting every year 

 with a single tuber, the best of the year (proved to have been so 

 by its having been found to produce the best plant), for now 

 fourteen years. My main object here has been absolute freedom 

 from disease, and these potatoes are now descended from a line 

 of single tubers, each the best plant of the year, and absolutely 

 healthy ; and concurrently with the endeavour to wipe out all 

 hereditary tendency to disease, I have always kept in full view 

 the point of increasing productiveness. The remit may be thus 

 shortly stated. Dividing the first twelve years into three periods, 

 the average number of tubers upon the annual best plant selected 

 was, for the first period of four years, 16 ; for the second period 

 of four years, 19 ; for the last period of four years, 27, or nearly 

 double the number produced during the first series of four years. 

 And if, as I might very fairly have done, I had confined the first 

 period to the first three years (instead of four), the Last period 

 would have sliown an average of 27 tubers against 13 in the first 

 period, or more than double. Here, exactly as with the number 

 of grains in the ear of the cereals, we reach in the last period of 

 a long series of years a standard altogether higher than in the 

 first years of the series, and this no matter how we divide it into 

 "periods." In the latter "periods" of a series of years the 

 results vary according to season and circumstances ; but (except 

 in a case of disaster) in no year of the last year of a series do 

 they drop baek tc the standard of the earliest years ! Can it pos- 

 sibly be conceived that all this is mere chance or accident ? Is 

 it not the fair conclusion, rather, that nature offers to us — nay, 

 tempts us with — on every side rewards for intelligent observa- 

 tion, if we will only learn the lessons and avail ourselves of the 

 variations which she presents to us ? 



1 have hitherto spol en of food plants only, of vines, beetroot, 

 cereals, and potatoes, but in a Health Congress such as this, 1 

 may be permitted also to refer to plants destined for clothing ; 

 of little, if of any, less importance than food to the health of 

 mankind. I will take the cotton plant a^ an illustration. In 

 the Times of India, November 6, 1869, an article headed 

 "Cotton Report" says: "The Cotton Administration Report 

 for the past year concluded with an interesting notice of the 

 experiments made last season and of others which are now in 

 progress in different parts of the Presidency, for growing cotton 

 of an improved quality. To those who remember the conclu- 

 sions recorded by Mr. Walter Cassel-', in 1S62, in his work 

 prepared and printed on account of Government, it may seem 

 strange that such experiments are now undertaken at all. These 

 conclusions, drawn from the past history of cotton cultivation in 

 Bombay, were (1) that 'exotic cotton cannot be successfully 

 cultivated on a large scale in Bombay Presidency, except in a 

 limited portion of its southern districs'; (2) that 'Indian 

 cotton may be improved in cleanliness and somewhat reduced in 

 cost, but the general characteristics of the staple will not be 

 materially altered.' Because lacs of rupees had been in a long 

 course of years expended in cotton exper ments, and these had 

 resulted in a long list of failures, it -eeins to have been supposed 

 that the utmost had been tried in vain, and that the question 

 had been finally set at rest.' The article, having referred to 

 Mr. Cassel's opinion that the failure of exotic cotton when 

 cultivated on a large scale was due to the violence of the Indian 

 season, continues thus: — "The climate of Hindostan is, we 

 admit, in nearly all that relates to cotton, very different to that 

 of any but the most aiid districts in our Northern Decern col- 

 lectorates, But it is 1 lainly a fallacy to attribute to climatic 

 influence results for which other causes can be found independent 

 of the climate, and, unlike the climate, quite within our control. 

 One of these causes is indicated in a .Minute by the Governor of 

 Bombay, dated January 10, 1S69, in wdiich his Excellency, who 

 attaches great importance to ihe subject as one 'of vital interest 

 to this Presidency,' remarks that 'the experiments that have 

 hitherto been made by the order of Government w ith a view to 

 improvements in the cultivation of cotton, do not appear to have 

 been hitherto carried out with sufficient persistence or sufficient 

 method. So that, in fact, as remarked in the report before us in the 

 matter of Indian cotton improvement, we are yet butonthethresh- 

 holdof our experience, but let us hope that the course will now be 

 distinctly mapped, and that we may be saved from the task of be- 

 ginning our experience again and again. What is still wanted, not 



