' PRACTICAL INFERENCES. 123 
and especially by selecting forms which observation 
would show are specially suited to a particular locality. 
Thus Rivett’s red wheat produced at Rothamsted, on an 
average of eight years, fifty-three bushels of- grain per 
acre, while Hallett’s original red, grown under the same 
conditions, yielded only thirty-six bushels. 
Change of Seed.—This is a practice followed with ad- 
vantage by both gardener and farmer, for it-is found that 
the crop is improved when seed even of the same variety 
is obtained from a distance where it has been grown 
under different conditions of soil and climate. In such 
cases it is better, where possible, to select seed grown on 
a poorer soiland under more unfavorable conditions than 
obtain where it is proposed to sow. The increased vigor 
and degree of fertility resulting from this process have 
been commented on by Darwin. 
Cross Breeding by means of artificial fertilization 
is an operation not so much within the power of an 
ordinary agriculturist, owing to the delicacy of manipu- 
Jation and length of time required to ensure results worth 
having. Such experiments would be better accomplished 
in the laboratory or experimental garden of the professed 
‘physiologist. The experiments carried out by Andrew 
Knight, Maund, and Sheriff, in the case of wheat and 
oats are, however, encouraging. When undertaken for 
‘practical purposes, it is specially desirable that mere hap- 
hazard crosses should not be encouraged, much less made 
purposely, but that a definite object should be pursued. 
jn a definite manner. The experimenter should set him- 
self to work to endeavor to produce an earlier, a hardier, 
a more prolific variety, as the case may be, selecting for 
his purpose such varieties to breed from as he has ascer- 
‘tained by experience to be of such a nature as likely to 
yield promising results. Itis not possible to give detailed 
