THE WHEAT CTJLTTJEI8T. 



243 



from the kernels on the tip end of the ears, was greater 

 than from seed on the middle of the ear. 



E"o doubt Mr. Flint recorded the experiment in good 

 faith ; but I have no confidence in the result of it. I 

 do not believe it was fairly conducted. It is contrary to 

 reason, common sense, the experience of good farmers, 

 and opposed to the established laws of vegetable physi- 

 ology, that a small, ill-formed kernel should produce 

 more and better grain than would grow from the best 

 ones on the ear. All good farmers, in ages past, and 

 even at the present day, have been instructed to plant 

 the best kernels — to propagate from the best kind of 

 everything — ^because " like produces like," as well in the 

 vegetable as the animal kingdom. 



In our efforts to improve our domestic animals, we 

 always choose the very best as a breeder — one that pos- 

 sesses the most good points of form, symmetry, and con- 

 stitution. By this means our flocks and herds have been 

 brought to their present degree of perfectibility. ITow, 

 let us suppose, for example, that we are told by a man, 

 who is considered good authority, that, by selecting the 

 meanest and shabbiest-looking nags that can be found, 

 or by breeding from the veriest scrub of a cow and 

 skalawag bull, we may obtain animals superior to any- 

 thing that we have ever raised ! Every sensible man or 

 woman would say, at once, that the idea is a palpable 

 absurdity. When we breed froifi ill-favored animals, we 

 never expect to get offspring superior to their progenitors ; 

 because it would be unnatural for an animal, or for any 

 kind of seed, to impart to its issue or product, excellencies 

 which itself never possessed. If we can raise more and 

 better grain from the small, ill-formed kernels on the 

 little end of the ear, than from the largest and fairest. 



