380 
On " Pcdif/ree " in Wheat 
first week in September the seed-time extends through that and 
the two following months, giving much greater choice of oppor- 
tunity for sowing under favourable circumstances than is pre- 
sented when nearly the whole work has to be performed in 
November — a month which too often proves so wet as upon heavy 
land altogether to prevent its accomplishment, and hardly ever 
admits of the entire seeding being performed either under the 
conditions or at the time, known to be those most conducive to 
success. September-planted wheat may follow clover (of all 
kinds), beans, peas, or early-fed rape, &c., but never immediately 
after rye-grass. 
2nd. Tlie small quantity of Seed required. — Although the 
saving of seed, instead of being a main object in my plan, is 
only a means to obtaining perfect growth, and, as it were, a neces- 
sity arising from it, we must not overlook the national import- 
ance of even this single one of its features. Were the wheat-lands 
of the United Kingdom drilled with an averae/c of even 2 pecks per 
acre (1 peck for the earliest sown, and 3 pecks for the latest), the 
result would be a saving of three-fourths of the seed — in itself 
equal to nearly a million quarters of reheat. 
Again, the small quantity of seed required renders the results 
of the most refined selection in the small plot practically and 
immediately available by their distribution over a verv large 
area ; thus I have now a field of 7 acres planted with the produce 
of a single grain planted two years ago, — one acre of it with the 
produce of a single ear planted 1860. 
We can thus annually import from the selecting-plot to the 
farm, seed one generation still further selected, effectually counteract- 
ing the tendency to degenerate which remains even in a pedigree 
wheat, and which can begin to take effect only upon the selection 
being discontinued. The longer, however, this course of repeated 
selection has been continued, the greater will be the accumulated 
vigour of the plants, and the less readily will degeneracy re- 
appear.* 
3rd. The rapid growth of thej)lant in its earlier and more hazard- 
ous staqes. — The temperature early in September is generally such 
as to promote not only immediate germination so that the plants 
frequently appear aboveground in ten days, but also their rapid sub- 
* The importance of continuing the selection cannot be too much insisted upon. 
To discontinue it would be as unwise and irrational as the conduct of the breeder 
who, having brought his herd to a certain pitch of excellence, suddenly exhibited 
an utter disregard of those principles by which this had been accomplished ; in 
fact, tlie man who once admits tlie value of repeated selection must also admit 
the necessity of its continuance, even for the mere maintenance oi perfection, were 
that desirable point already attained. In nothing is it more true than in this, that 
" not to advance is to retrograde." The value of " pedigree" in wheat depends, 
as in other cases, upon its leni///i. 
