106 Improvement of the Plants of the Farm. 
per cwt. Those who are so ill-advised as to purchase inferior 
foreign seed might be induced perhaps to save the produce for 
seed, increasing, though undesignedly, the inherited feebleness of 
a plant which needs strengthening ! 
With regard to hops, Mr. Whitehead, Barming House, Maid- 
stone, informs me they are propagated entirely by cuttings, but 
in East Kent they sometimes raise " seedlings." * The " Gold- 
ing's," Jones, Colegate's, each adapted to particular soils and 
sites, were originally seedlings. Though the female plant is 
the one cultivated, yet it generally happens that one or two male 
plants spring up, or a male branch on a female bine, and these 
suffice. As the plants are dioecious, i.e. have male flowers on 
one bine, female on another, cross-breeding to some extent must 
take place. 
Change of Seed. — In all parts of the country farmers act in the 
belief that benefit is derived fi'om a change of seed from one soil 
or district to another. A well-known grower of a pure stock of 
Chidham wheat, living near Guildford, used to change the seed 
from his farm on the chalk of the North Downs to a clay farm 
in another district, and the farmers of Sussex change from the 
Wealden to the chalk, and from the rich coast land to the interior. 
According to a doggerel from the fens, " Sand is change for no 
land." Any other change is held to be good, the change from a 
cooler climate, and from clay or strong gravel soil to peat, in- 
ducing a larger produce with less liability to blight. In discuss- 
ing this subject, Mr. Darwin shows that " slight changes in the 
conditions of life are favourable to plants and animals," and the 
breeders of each recognise this truth. The benefits that ensue 
from crossing and those derived from " slight changes in the 
conditions of life " are analogous phenomena. " Life depend- 
ing on, or consisting in, an incessant play of the most complex 
forces, it would appear that their action is in some way stimu- 
lated by slight changes in the circumstances to which each 
organism is exposed."! Judging from the reports of my corre- 
spondents, the practice of changing the seed of cereals is almost 
universal both in Europe and America. 
M. Henry Vilmorin informs me that " in some parts of 
France it is a common practice, in order to secure larger and 
more certain crops. The change is effected generally from a 
colder to a warmer district, or from a poorer to a richer soil." 
Seed is changed, however, with several objects ; and sometimes 
for the sake of securing earlier maturity it is brought from a 
* f?ce Mr. C. Whitehead and others on "The Hop" in 'Journal' R.A.S., and 
the article " Hop," in lloyle's ' Jlatciia Jledica.' 
t ' Animals and Plants under Dome::tication,' vol. ii. p. 130. 
