IMPROVEMENT OF WHEAT BY SELECTION 79 
CHaptTer V. 
IMPROVEMENT OF WHEAT BY SELECTION 
IN NEW ZEALAND. 
(By Dr. F. W. Hilgendorf). 
1. Historical, 
Wheat has been a cultivated plant since the dawn of 
human history, and there is no doubt that at various 
periods efforts must have been made to improve its 
qualities. Darwin quotes Virgil—‘‘I have seen the 
largest grains, though viewed with care, degenerate, 
unless an industrious hand did yearly cull the largest.’” 
Coming to our own times the record of selection of 
wheat for improvement in quality starts with the 
work of Le Couteur, who lived in the Island of Jersey, 
and who, in 1815, made his famous selection ‘‘Bellevue 
de Talavera,’’ which under the name of ‘‘Talavera’’ is 
still grown in France, Britain, and New Zealand. 
Shireff, of Haddingtonshire, Scotland, made some famous 
selections between the years 1819 and 1872. In 1886 
there was established at Svalof, Sweden, the Swedish 
Seed Association, a private venture for the improvement 
of cereal seeds. Under the direction of Dr. H. Nilsson, 
very many selections of the highest value have been 
made, and the institution has become world-famous. The 
three wheat breeders mentioned all worked separately, 
and probably in ignorance of the methods employed by 
the others. But all of them hit on the same plan of 
taking a single wheat ear of apparently outstanding 
merit and multiplying the offspring of that ear without 
further selection. This is called ‘‘Single Ear Selection.’’ 
As the true quality of an ear is not discernible from 
