THE 



TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF THE 



CEYLON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Vol. XXXVIII. COLOMBO, JUNE 15th, 1912, No. 6. 



SEED SELECTION IN PADDY. 



It is related of one of the great Emperors of China, who lived more than 

 3000 years ago, that one day, when walking on the border of a rice field, he noticed 

 a rice plant which excelled its neighbours in size and luxuriance. He forthwith 

 decreed that the seed of this plant should be carefully preserved, and that his royal 

 name should be specially associated with its progeny. From this plant a strain of 

 rice is said to have sprung which excelled all previously known varieties in yield 

 and vigour. It spread over the whole country, and all men blessed the name of 

 the Emperor as they consumed the increased rations which were thus secured 

 to them. 



Whether a result of equal importance could be produced again in an equally 

 simple manner is perhaps doubtful, but there is no doubt that by careful selection 

 the yield from a field of paddy can be materially increased. Even in a field of 

 transplanted paddy where the whole crop appears to have grown uniformly to 

 an even height, it will be found on closer examination that individual plants differ 

 enormously among themselves in the number of tillers which they produce and 

 in the weight of grain yielded. Evidence bearing upon this point derived from 

 the crop of paddy grown at the Experiment Station, Peradeniya, during the season 

 1910-11, was published in the Tropical Agriculturist for September last, and from 

 that account the following passages are quoted. 



" On the paddy field at the Peradeniya Experiment Station an area was 

 selected which was bounded by a single bund, and which might therefore be 

 expected to be fairly uniform as regards soil composition. Here five plots were 

 marked out, each 20 feet square, or rather less than hundredth of an acre, and 

 on these paddy seedlings were transplanted singly at different distances. Paddy 

 was also transplanted close up to the edge of each plot all round— an important 

 precaution for two reasons : first, because only in this way can the plots be re- 

 garded as fair samples of a larger area ; and secondly, because birds and other 

 enemies which always attack an experimental plot under the impression that 

 some special delicacy must be growing there are in this way more or less circum- 

 vented. The remainder of the field was transplanted, according to what appears 

 to be the local practice, in bunches of sis to ten plants about G iachas apart. 



