Improvement of the Plants of the Farm. 
lU 
wheat-land, obtain tlie seed every year from a neighbour- 
ing canton, less fertile, growing wheat of the same kind which 
is much less plump, but more vigorous than that of their own 
growth. No one can speak with more authority than M. Vil- 
morin on the general subject of this paper, and I am sure all 
improvers will read with profit the following letter : — 
"Antibes, Alpes Maiitimcs, 
" Dear Sm, " ^arch 20th, 18S3. 
" I have no doubt but the process of improvement which has given 
such excellent results as applied to vegetables and ornamental plants might 
also be used successfully in tlie case of the plants of the farm. The process 
itself, however, is a long and in most cases a difficult one, and not easily 
within reach of the farmers. 
" The only real process of improvement is that of selection, and there is no 
other system, in my opinion, by which to arrive at a real and durable modifi- 
cation of the useful plants for the better. Artificial crossing (or as it is very 
often, but not altogether rightly, called — hyhridisation) is in fact only a means 
to induce variation in the cultivated plants, with a view to promote the 
development of new forms, from which it is hoped that something better than 
the kinds alreadj' known might be obtained by selection. When such a cross 
takes place, many of the forms raised are worthless, some are very similar to 
their progenitors, and a few only may be regarded as something better. But 
even these have no agricultural value until ihey are propagated to a large 
extent, and it comes out often during the process of propagation that the new 
form is not steady enough to be regarded as a fixed race. It is only after 
several years of cultivation and of careful selection that a new form, even if 
obtained by an intentional cross, can be developed into a new and distinct 
i-ace. 
" Sports are often produced in cultivated plants without any cross-fertilisa- 
tion ; again, accidental crosses very frequently take place by the agency of 
insects or of wind, and it is often to new forms which have originated in 
either of these ways that the process of selection is applied bj^ gardeners or 
farmers. But it is always in the end by careful and continued selection that 
a variation, whatever its origin may be, is made to grow into a new, distinct, 
and fixed race, and as such can become really valuable to the farmer. 
" Hybrids, properly speaking, are the oifspring of two plants belonging to 
differeitt botanical species, \l crossed the one with the other; they are rather 
rare and generally of limited fertility. The so-called hybrids of the gardeners 
are simply the offspring of two plants belonging to two distinct varieties of 
the same species. We call them in French metis (I think ' mongrel ' would be 
the proper English translation of the word). These are quite iDrolific, some- 
times even more so tlian the varieties from which they have been raised. 
But only a few of the plants which grow out of the seeds obtained as the 
direct result of the cross prove really distinct from and superior to the plants 
from which the seeds have been produced. If I may mention a fact within 
my own experience, it was only after six or seven years of continued cultiva- 
tion and selection, that a new wheat raised by me from two kinds purposely 
crossed appeared to be suiSciently even and fixed in character to be sent out 
on trial. During the first three or four years, and in spite of the severest 
selection, it yielded a pretty large percentage of plants different in character 
from the type I wanted to fix. You will see by that example that the process 
of raising and making new varieties is a long and tedious one. 
"It requires so much time, and engrosses the care and attention so much. 
II 
