484 



^GILOPIAN WHEAT 



was no disposition to return to its original form, there was on 

 the other a decided tendency to sport still more. Of that 

 tendency he availed himself with admirable patience. Year by 

 year the change went on— but slowly. Little by little one part 



altered or another.. 

 The hungry grain 

 grew plumper; the 

 flour in it increased ; 

 its size augmented. 

 The starved ears 

 formed other spike - 

 lets; the spikelets 

 at first containing 

 but two flowers at 

 last became capable 

 of yielding four or 

 five. The straw 

 stifiened, the leaves 

 widened, the ears 

 lengthened, the corn 

 softened and aug- 

 mented, tUl at last 

 "Wheat itself stood 

 revealed, and of 

 such quality that it 

 was not excelled on 

 the neighbouriug 

 farms. 



It is, in fact, 

 through attention 

 to sports that many 

 of the most striking of our flowers and fruit have been obtained. 

 A single dwarf Larkspur sports by chance to double ; the seeds 

 of the sport are saved carefully and sown ; three-fourths of the 

 seedlings are single^ but a few are double; the first are thrown 

 away, the best of the second are saved for seed, and the second 

 crop of seedHngs comes truer. Thus arise the race of double 

 Larkspurs. A double Larkspur next sports to a stripe, that is 



Fig. XCVIII.— Monstrous Dahlia. 



