Improvement of the Plants of the Farm. 
107 
warmer soil and climate, and the produce retains its earlier 
habit for a few years. So far as the general principle is con- 
cerned, American evidence is as useful as English, and I may 
therefore quote Mr. F. H. Horsford, Charlotte, Vermont, who 
says what my experience confirms, with some exceptions : " It 
is believed by some that it is not best to go too far for seed. We 
think it better to go a little to the north-east or west than to the 
south." 
This means that in obtaining change of seed we should 
keep within bounds. A gentleman who endeavoured to ripen 
maize on the banks of the Thames bought the seed at Mark 
Lane. It proved to be the " dent corn " of the south. He 
deprived himself of all chance of success by sowing a slowly 
maturing variety, which is habituated to a much longer summer 
and hotter sun than ours. M. Henry Vilmorin mentions an 
interesting piece of experience with regard to the change of 
seed. After remarking that the effect of climate in inducing a 
change of habit is certain, only its action is very slow, and does 
not effect a marked change unless it is exerted for a long series 
of years, he continues : " With our farmers, seed imported from a 
different climate is not much thought of in the first year of proof. 
Seed-corn is much more valued when harvested in the district 
from foreign seed which has been grown there once. It is 
thought to retain its primitive good qualities, and, besides, to 
be broken to the soil and climate. This is especially the case 
with flax-seed from Russia." 
Every year losses are incurred in England and America from 
the injudicious sowing of fine samples of wheat from hotter 
climates. Australian wheat may have been originally derived 
from England, but the climate has changed its habit, it blossoms 
prematurel}^ and is in other respects unfitted for this country. 
In France it has been found impossible to grow Australian 
wheat, owing to its liability to rust. Several varieties of 
English wheat, on the contrary, have been introduced into the 
cooler parts of France with great advantage, proving superior to 
the native kinds, and exempt from attacks of rust. We read in 
* Les Meilleurs Bles ' * of some very disadvantageous changes of 
seed that have been tried in France. The sorts of wheat that 
ripen in the west and north-west side of the country are chiefly 
white varieties, a little late, and very productive of straw and 
grain, under the influence of mild winters and temperate 
summers. If these sorts are carried to the warmer inland 
districts, they are in some seasons destroyed by the winter ; if 
they resist the cold, they often suffer from the heat. If, on the 
* ' Les Meilleurs BMs.' By Vilmorin-Andrieux et Cie. Paris, 18S0. 
