Varieties of iVhecit and MethocU of tmprovuuj them. 25l5 
tillering powers of the plant are enormously increased, and the 
ears become enlarged and more uniform in size. Even so long 
ago as 18G0, when the pedigree was short, Mr. Hallett claimed 
a ci-op on G98 square feet, at the rate of 108 bushels per acre ; 
and, if no flaw existed in his theory, there seems no reason, 
why twice as large a crop might not have been long since 
attained. 
Writing in 18G1, Mr. Hallett was unaware that his giant ear 5 
had already reached their maximum ; but a letter from him to the 
AgriciiUund (7a:;e/^c of November 29, 1886, seems to admit thatthe 
ear of 1861 had never been excelled, and that his best record was 
still 123 grains in a single ear. I write without the least desire to 
depreciate the value of Mr. Hallett's experiments, but it seems to me 
that my account of the different varieties of wheat should include 
the enlarged wheats, though none of them are really new varieties, 
but only bloated specimens of old ones. Thin seeding, which 
gives the wheat plants more space both above and below ground, 
is in fact a method of securing high-feeding, and on this point 
Dr. Maxwell T. Masters, F.R.S., the editor of the Gardener s 
Chronicle, has been good enough to give me his opinion a? 
follows : Starving or feeding would develop luxuriance or the 
reverse ; it would not occasion any structural change in kind, but 
only in degree." The Rothamsted experiments on pastures 
may be cited in confirmation of this remark. 
Any kind of wheat can be made relatively gigantic by thin 
seeding in good land ; but the result is not a new variety, it is 
not even permanently altered, though it is certainly spoiled for 
a time. It is significant that none of these enlarged forms have 
found favour in the great corn countries. A recent report of the 
United States Department of Agriculture gave a list of all the 
varieties grown in the States, enumerating 270 sorts. Among 
these any variety with a pedigree of four years, and an ear 
enlarged by thin seeding and capable of producing from 51 
to 108 bushels per acre, might be expected to occupy the leading 
position among a shrewd race of farmers whose average of 12 
or 14 bushels per acre has brought them for some years past 
little or no profit. But the variety having the widest distribu- 
tion is Fultz, a red winter wheat, which originated in Pennsyl- 
vania, and was distributed in 1871 and since by the Department. 
It is named after the farmer who first cultivated it, and it 
probably occupies one-third of the area seeded in winter wheat, 
producing at least a fourth of all the wheat harvested in the 
country. A variety called Mediterranean comes next in import- 
ance, and then the Fyfe wheat — named after its Scotch intro- 
ducer. A winter wheat named Clawson ranks next, and these 
