258 



THE WHEAT CULTURIST. 



successive years, and sometimes abandoned, as un- 

 worthy of further efforts in endeavoring to establish a 

 new variety. Therefore, when farmers sow anything 

 and everything that is called wheat, letting it all grow 

 together, whether it ripens early or late, and cultivate 

 it poorly at that, and take no pains to sow the choicest 

 seed, or to keep a good variety distinct, what can any 

 one naturally expect, but rapid degeneracy of the grain? 

 Degeneracy, or ' running out of varieties,' is the natural 

 and certain result of such bad management in the selec- 

 tion of the seed, and cultivation of the crop, to which 

 we have alluded. 



" We never hear that a good variety of Indian corn 

 has degenerated, until it has been planted near other 

 kinds, with which it has been allowed to mix. And, if 

 the same care were exercised in selecting the very best 

 kernels of a well-established variety of wheat for seed, 

 and keeping the seed grain separate, in a secm^e place, 

 we should have the unbounded satisfaction of seeing our 

 wheat fields produce, not only larger heads, plumper ker- 

 nels, and heavier grain in much greater abundance per 

 acre, but no signs of degeneracy would appear, were the 

 same kind of grain raised in one locality generation 

 after generation. 



" Historians inform us that the same varieties of good 

 wheat are now grown on the fertile soils on each side 

 of the River l^ile in Egypt, with no signs of degeneracy, 

 that were raised there a thousand years ago. 



" Instead of there being a natural tendency in wheat 

 to degenerate, if it is cultivated as it always should be, 

 and none but the best seed put in, there would be a 

 manifest tendency to improve from year to year. Every 

 experienced wheat-grower will acknowledge this. Farm- 



