122. PLANT LIFE ON THE FARM. 
particular places. The investigator who sets to work to 
produce really improved varieties, has a more difficult 
task before him, owing to the number of excellent varie- 
ties already in existence. The consequence of this is 
that much labor and patience must be expended before 
any real improvement on what is already in existence can 
be expected, although there is the chance that a real ad- 
vance may be made almost at once. The large capital 
employed by the seed-houses in raising and introducing 
improved. varieties—real or so-called—is, at least, a testi- 
mony that the practice is pecuniarily profitable to the 
trader, and forms therefore a resource which the agricul- 
turist might develop for himself to a larger extent than 
he does. He would reap the advantage on his own farm, 
even if he lacked the capital and enterprise requisite to 
conduct a commercial speculation away from it. 
Selection.—The improvement of the races of cultivated 
plants, as previously alluded to, is indicated by Nature 
herself. In a wheat field or bean crop no two plants are 
exactly alike: one is more robust than another, one 
tillers more than the rest, the ears of one are plumper 
and fuller, this one grows earlier or later in spring, is 
therefore hardier or more tender, as the case may be. 
The careful observer notes these points, and instead of 
passing them over, endeavors to turn them to account by 
selecting the plant which shows a tendency to vary, 
taking seed from it and growing that seed another season. 
A. ceriain proportion of the offspring is pretty sure to 
reproduce the desired qualities, probably even to mani- 
fest them in an enhanced degree. This leads to further 
and repeated selection, till, at length, a new race or 
variety is established. When it is remembered what 
vast results have accrued from the improvement of wheat 
and.turnips by selection of this kind, it seems remarka- 
ble that further efforts are not made in this direction, 
