Improvement of the Plants of the Farm. 
99 
improvers : — " It has taken me forty-five years to arrive at what 
I have done with the potato ; and the variety does not now 
exist with which I could cross any of my latest seedlings to 
improve them, taking quality as a prime test ; because for 
twenty years past I have been crossing and re-crossing con- 
tinuallv all our best old English varieties, handing down, so to 
speak, their flesh and blood, and now, after having crossed them 
with the best of the American breeds, I am at the end of my 
tether. I could go on crossing to get size, but that would mean 
deterioration ; and I could go on breeding ' in and in ' with my 
own best sorts, and I well know what would happen." Crossing 
with recent varieties raised by others would, he fears, lead to 
deterioration of quality, so he leaves others to solve the problem 
of further improving potatoes. 
Improved forms of forage plants or roots are far easier to 
produce than improved seed-bearing plants like cereals, and the 
rye-grasses offer a variety of forms capable of advantageous 
modification. In the trial-grounds at Reading there were 
numerous plots of rye-grass, good and bad in character, as well 
as examples of the same variety of rye-grass differing in quality 
in consequence of the seed having been produced in different 
districts. The common annual and the perennial rye-grass 
differ greatly in luxuriance of growth, the best sort of perennial 
rye grass being exceedingly productive and worthy of its position, 
as a grass that forms one-third of the bulk of some of our most 
productive pasttires, while the annual variety is as unproductive 
as it is unpromising in appearance. One of these grasses, in 
the middle of July looked brown and poor of produce, while 
the other was green, and growing like a plant which must 
needs produce a bulky crop. Among all the adulterations by 
which unwary farmers have been defrauded, none are more 
readily effected, none are more frequent, than those by which 
unscrupulous traders obtain undue profit in the sale of rye-grass 
which is not perennial, though it is represented as being so. 
The improvement of this particular crop urgently requires that 
the seed should be tested, that it should weigh from 20 lbs. to 
28 lbs. per bushel, that cheap seed should be avoided, or sown 
side by side with other seed supplied by seedsmen of repute. 
The tendency of Italian rye-grass to produce seed-stalks instead 
of leaves, a characteristic fault which heavy and early stocking 
partially removes, has long presented itself to the notice of 
plant-improvers as one which perhaps might be removed. A 
selector having succeeded in producing what is called a Giant 
Evergreen Italian rye-grass, remarkable for its early growth of 
spreading leaves, the eminent firm Avho obtained the stock have 
been able to add to this most useful class of forage plants a 
H 2 
