108 
Improvement of the Plants of the Farm. 
contrary, the change of seed is in the reverse direction, frora 
east to west, from a continental to a maritime climate, the 
wheat will most probably suffer seriously from rust. The 
same remarks applied to seed obtained from South Russia and 
Turkestan. These are all examples of going beyond bounds for 
seed, and thereby introducing adverse habits and tendencies. 
With regard to the ordinary changes of seed from one locality 
to another, which are common everywhere, it does not appear 
that any systematic experiments on this interesting subject have 
been conducted. The practice rests solely on the general belief 
in its importance. Exact knowledge in regard to the sorting of 
seed-corn, to suit the localities to which it is sent, must be of 
great importance to those seedsmen who are engaged in that 
branch of business. Messrs. Hiram, Sibley, and Co., say very 
truly in their grain-manual that not one bushel of maize in a 
thousand is suitable for seed, and they have agents who scour 
the districts which produce the best grain in search of seed- 
corn. Customers in Ohio may be supplied from the lime- 
stone regions of Nebraska, but certainly not from the sugar- 
growing region so far south as Louisiana. INIistakes almost 
as serious might be committed in transferring seed-corn beyond 
the limits of the proper districts in England. Such firms as 
Messrs. Oakshott, of Reading, undoubtedly attend to these 
points, and the series of experiments which I believe that 
firm have instituted should prove both interesting and advan- 
tageous. 
In the Vale of Evesham it is found that a change from the 
hills to the vales, and vice versa, has the effect of increasing the 
yield of both corn and straw. An old saying in the district is, 
that " seed-corn should come frora sunrise," i.e. from the East. 
Square-head wheat sent from the Vale of Evesham, degene- 
rates in a less favourable locality in Hampshire. Mr. A. M. 
Savory is in the habit of sending the seed of this variety of 
wheat to a friend on the Hampshire hills, and when he has 
grown it there for several successive years, the ears lose their 
square shape, and the corn becomes thin and flinty, and dete- 
riorates in quality. The same informant says of beans, that the 
white-eyed sort become black-eyed when they have been grown 
in the vale for a few years, and a change of beans is more 
important than in the case of any other kind of seed. 
The produce of seed-wheat from Wiltshire, sown by Mr. 
Robert Russell, in Kent, on the same day as that from the early 
district of Heme Bay, ripened a week later. Near Windsor, 
Mr. Trumper says : — 
" Our great object is to f;ct seeds that have been grown on chalk, as wc find 
that suits our loams the best. This we can grow safely for two years, or at 
