384 Improvement of Crops by Selection, [august. 



a collection of forty ears of barley, for example, arranged 

 according to a definite character — let us say density. For 

 each character there is a classificator, as for size, shape, hairi- 

 ness, &c. An ear to be classified is moved along the row 

 until it is obviously intermediate between two ears, one before 

 and the other behind it, and as the ears are arranged on a 

 scale marked by figures, the figure nearest to the ear investi- 

 gated indicates the degree of the character in question. 



Another example may be given. The quality of barley in 

 one character is tested by means of its transparency in a 

 diaphanoscope. The classificator is, therefore, a row of barley 

 grains of different degrees of transparency arranged before 

 a reflector of special construction. The grains to be tested 

 are placed in a screen of similar nature and moved along the 

 classificator until their transparency coincides with one of the 

 standard grains. Kernels of cereals, peas, and vetches, stems 

 for their calibre, leaves for their length and breadth, all come 

 to the classificators to find their level. Other instruments 

 collect from an ear or panicle the upper, middle, or lower 

 grains as required, punching machines register on a dial the 

 hardness of grains when divided, and automatic weighing 

 machines extract light from heavy ears, twenty to the minute 

 with absolute precision. 



The museum would apparently provide ample material for 

 research students for a generation. A student wishes to know 

 if barley '9246 is mutating after seven years in the trial plots. 

 In the museum he will find six ears of the six previous years 

 arranged tandem on a string ; he will find dried specimens of 

 the plants, boxes of the grain, and a description which has 

 left nothing unobserved. 



The Bookkeeping. — From the moment when a plant is first 

 selected from the field it is registered by a number which it 

 bears until it is put upon the market or discarded. The 

 number consists of four figures ; the first, a cipher to avoid 

 confusion with other numbers ; the second refers to the group, 

 i.e.f Chevalier or Goldthorpe, for example, and the last two 

 to the special sort, sub-race or strain. The morphological 

 characters of any species are registered by a system of short- 

 hand in which symbols stand for long descriptions ; thus a 

 row of symbols will indicate the precise nature of a wheat 



