IMPROVEMENT OF SEEDS AND SEED GRAINS. . 19 
| Ido-not:say that these: results—these increases—were altogether due to improve- 
ment of the seed by selection. There is the acquired skill of the boys and.girls in pick- 
ing the best. heads, due to trained observation. There isthe better cultivation of plots 
"tobe noted. When thesé and other contributing factors are all allowed for, there is 
still. much of: the improvement to be attributed directly to the systematic selection. 
Ser oh testimony to the superiority of the quarter-acre seed plots is confirmatory 
of -that. : en 
By Mr. Robinson (Elgin) : 
Q. Did all the provinces take part in that competition? 
A. They all took part, and nearly in proportion to their agricultural population. 
By Mr. Cochrane: , 
Q. Is it not a fact that the same seeds grown continually under similar condi- 
tions will deteriorate?. 
A. Some farmers have been doing this kind: of thing, applying a principle of selec- 
tion in a rough way, for many years; as they have done in Scotland for thirty years to 
my own knowledge with advantage. I do not know of any case in which the seed has 
run out or deteriorated if annual selections have been made of the best seed or even 
of seed from the best part of the crop. 
Q. I have found that it is a good thing to change seed in a locality sometimes. 
A. That may be in some instances; but I do not know of a single case where the 
seed has run out during systematic selection. In Fifeshire, where they grow heavy 
crops, it:is‘'a common practice there for the farmers to pick out an acre or more on their 
fields where the heaviest ‘and best crop grows, save that, and stack it by itself, for seed. 
Q. Do you think it has a beneficial effect to have the heads selected only while 
growing? : ' 
A. If the head of seed came from a weak plant, even although it was a large head, 
it would not have the inheritance of vigorous productive qualities. It is not merely 
the long, large head or ear that is wanted, but the large head full of plump, well 
ripened seeds from -the large vigorous plant that is wanted. 
By Mr. Wright: 
Q. We have been handling pease, as you know, for many years and we have found 
it to be a certainty in the case of farmers with light soil, that their pease grown on 
that light soil deteriorate and in three or four years become extinct, while farmers 
that have clay land can grow pease year after year and they do not appear to deterior- 
ate at all. . 
A. Perhaps you will find that the bacteria that nourished the pea plant is much 
more abundant in lime and clay soil than in sandy soil. With regard to the effect of 
the nourishment of the crop on the quality of the seed from it, I remember going 
across the great wheat field at Rothamsted, England, with Sir John B. Lawes, who I 
think was the greatest authority on crop growing that the world has known so far. 
He had grown wheat on that field for something like forty-eight years under constant, 
continuous and regular supervision. I suppose there were ‘perhaps twenty-five or 
thirty plots in that field, each plot’ would be tivice as wide as this room, and then there 
was a passdge between the plots; each plot was drained, and drained into a cemented 
trench at the far end; the drainage had been collected and analysed for many years, 
so that they knew exactly what came out of the field both in the crop and in the drain- 
‘age. On the plots of the field different fertilizers had been used. On the first plot barn 
‘yard manure had been’ applied every year, the average crop being over 36 bushels to the 
acre.. On the next plot commercial fertilizers had been used and ‘it had given about 
-- the same yield per acre. The next plot had got absolutely nothing for over forty years; 
it had received nothing at all in the way of manure or fertilizer; and gave a crop onan 
R—24 
