■250 Notes and Comments. 



' massif ' also tells in another way. On a narrow range with 

 peaked summits, narrow ridges and steep broken slopes, the 

 atmospheric agents which effect weathering and erosion have 

 full play, hence screes of talus and wind-swept rocky slopes 

 occupy a large proportion of the ground and are unsuitable for 

 a large plant population. On the ' massif ' all this is modified, 

 and a greater part of the area consists of rounded summits, 

 with broad intervening cols and gentle slopes completely clad 

 with grassland, moor and forest. Here erosion has less effect, 

 the soil is less disturbed, and the primitive vegetation remains ; 

 whereas on recently disturbed soil only a few relict species can 

 retain their place, and a number of new comers find a home. 



PATRICK SHIRREFF AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF CEREALS. 



In a short paper contributed to the ' Transactions of the 

 Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland,' 1910, Dr. 

 Wm. G. Smith has performed a double service, first to remind 

 investigators of the important work done by Shirreff (1791- 

 1876), and second to summarise the results obtained since his 

 time. The beginning of the nineteenth century stands out pro- 

 minently as a period when many new varieties of wheat, barley 

 and oats came into cultivation, and almost entirely replaced 

 the older sorts of the eighteenth century. In this work Patrick 

 Shirreff occupies a pre-eminent position. When quite a young 

 man his attention was directed to promising plants in a crop. 

 The first he selected was a fine specimen in a wheat field at his 

 farm at Mungoswells, East Lothian, and measures were taken 

 to invigorate its growth, and in spite of several stalks being 

 cut down by hares, he eventually gathered sixty-three ears 

 from it. This was the origin of ' Mungoswell's Wheat.' For 

 several years he paid attention to the improvement of cereals 

 ' by fits and starts,' and several useful varieties resulted, e.g., 

 the ' Hopetoun Oat,' ' Hopetoun Wheat,' ' Shirreff Oat,' also 

 the ' Hopetoun Tare.' 



SELECTION AND HYBRIDISATION. 



After a break of many years he adopted more systematic 

 methods, and collected large numbers of promising ears of 

 wheat which were then propagated on his experimental trial 

 plot, and yielded about a dozen varieties, which were placed on 

 the market. He then began to hybridise varieties of cereals, 

 and succeeded in obtaining genuine hybrids, some of these being 

 produced when he was eighty years of age. In 1873 he pub- 



Naturali&ty 



