On " Pcdiprce " in Wheat. 
371 
moderate, produce 2400/. The costs of the roads, bridges, toll 
houses, and all expenses, except the salaries of the clerk and sur- 
veyors, amount to 4000/. About 500/. per annum is spent by the 
Commissioners in improvements. The extent of the roads and 
bye-roads is 400 miles, so that the average cost of repairs is 10/. 
a mile; but that of the main roads, if taken separately, will be 
found to amount to 20/. a mile. 
Fehruary, 18G1. 
XVI. — On Pcdifjrcc'" in Wheat as a Means of Increasing the 
Crop. By Frederic F. Hallett. 
TuE object of this Essay is to show that the Avheat-plant from its 
nature requires a mdde of culture lohich permits its perfect (jroictJi., 
and that wlien it is so cultivated by the repeated selection of the 
seed, of which, as in breeding animals, the record is a pedigree, 
we can gradually increase the contents of the ears without in 
the slightest degree diminishing their number. 
In considering the possibility of effecting a material increase 
in our wheat-crop, very little I'eflection will convince us that this 
can only be obtained by a further development of the contents, not 
of the number of the ears. 
The general experience that large ears are the result of a thin 
crop, seems to have produced the impression that the existence 
of such ears is confined to such crops.* This tacit assumption, 
that improvements in the size of the ears can be obtained only at 
a sacrifice of their number, has been a great stumbling-block in 
the way of advancement, as it closes the only path in which we 
can proceed with any prospect of success ; that it has, never- 
theless, no foundation in reality, I hope to be able to prove in 
the course of these pages. 
In pursuance of this object we will consider the nature of the 
plant, in order to arrive at the natural mode of cultivating it, the 
effect produced upon it by repeated selection of the seed, and the 
practical results obtainable by this combination. 
First then, as to the nature of the plant, or the mode in which 
it will grow when perfectly unrestrained, and the manner in icliich 
we should proceed to cultivate it, were it altogether a neio species. 
A perfect plant of wheat consists of three principal parts, 
viz., the roots, the stems, and the cars. When a grain is 
planted under the most favourable circumstances these are 
produced as follows : — Shortly after the plant appears above 
* The thin crop arises from the thinning of tlie plant having taken place at a 
time which admitted of only a partial subsequent development of the tillering 
powers of the survivors. 
