252 Varieties of Wheat and Methods of Im^rrocing them. 
fore, to relate the history of the successive enlar-gements of the 
pedigree wheat during three more years. In 1859 the finest ear 
measured 7f inches, and contained 91 grains, and the " finest 
stool '"' yielded 22 ears. The year 18G0 was wet, and we are only 
told that the "finest stool '' yielded o9 ears. But iu 18G1 Mr. 
Hallett tells us that the finest ear measured 8| inches and con- 
tained 123 grains, while tlie finest stool yielded 52 ears. " Thus," 
the experimenter adds, " by means of repeated selection alone, 
the length of the ears has been doubled, their contents nearly 
doubled, and the ' tillering ' power of the seed increased three- 
fold.-' 
This is certainly very rapid progress, and as we are told that 
the enlargement of the ears did not have the usual effect of 
reducing the number of stems, the crop of 18G1, allowing for 
the enlargement of the grains, ought to have been increased 
three-fold as compared with that of 1857. In point of fact, it 
was increased from between 32 and 36 bushels per acre — the 
customary yield- — to 54 bushels per acre. 
It is a curious circumstance that the original ear of the 
pedigree wheat appears to have been Kessingland instead of 
Nursery, as the originator had intended. Several growers who 
can never have heard of M. de Vilmorin's Les Meillcurs BUs have 
pointed out the exact resemblance of the pedigree wheat to the 
coarse sort just named ; while we read, in confirmation of their 
opinion, iu the above-named Avork of authority : " Hallett's 
wheat has all the characteristics of Kes.singland and none of 
those of Nursery." 
I think it will generally be admitted as a sound principle in 
the improvement of wheat that the plant should be subjected to 
ordinary conditions, and that the enlargement of the ear by leaps 
and bounds must have been due to thin seeding. Mr. Hallett 
planted his grains " twelve inches apart every way." I shall not 
follow him in his elaborate account of the practice and advantages 
of thin seeding, of the 934,000 ears per acre produced on one 
side of a hedge from G pecks of seed, while on the other side 4^ 
^nnts per acre ]n'oduced more than a million ears. If anything 
can be regarded as having been satisfactorily proved and settled 
in agriculture it is the fallacy of excessively thin seeding. This, 
however, is not my subject, and I only refer to it because Mr. 
Hallett claims to have imparted to his wheat an increased vitality 
by that method. " The vital powers of the different grains of 
ordinary wheat are," he says, " very unequal. But by repeated 
selection, commencing annually with a single grain, the vital 
power becomes equalised in a very remarkable degi'ee." Each 
grain, he asserts, gains immensely in constitutional vigour, the 
