Artificial Fecundation of Cereal and other Crops. 
261 
were cut, thrashed, weighed, and measured : the bailey and oats 
were not then ripe, but a few days afterwards they underwent the 
same test in the presence of the Communal authorities. 
The results which then obtained the sanction of the Commis- 
sion (pnt ete qfficiellement constates) were highly satisfactory to the 
experimenter, who'felt warranted to state that his process had, on 
an average, added 50 per cent, to the corn-crop, and that, in a 
fine season, when artificial aid would be less telling than usual. 
On the 10th of August the Commissioners read their Report 
to the Central Society of Agriculture ; up to the end of 1863 
this Report had not yet been published. After this Report, M. 
Dailly (the practical agriculturist of the Triumvirate) read a 
memorandum relating to a second testing, which was published 
in the ' Journal d'Agriculture Pratique,' from which the follow- 
ing passages and calculations are extracted : — 
" The produce per are (4 poles), of which you have just 
received the report, as tested at Sillery, on the 24th of July last, 
by M. Payen, M. A. Simon, and myself (M. Lefour being pre- 
vented by illness from accompanying us), corresponds with the 
following crops per hectare. 
Per Hectare. Per English Acre. 
Hectolitres. Kilogrammes. Bushels. lbs. 
Wheat fecundated* .. .. 41-5 3100 46 2728 
Wheat not fecundated .. 30'5 2100 34 1848 
Eye fecundated 34-5 2550 38 2244 
Eye not fecundated .. .. 22-6 1000 25 140S 
" If the number 100 represents the fecundated wheat and rye 
crops, the natural crop of wheat will be represented in bulk as 
73*49, and in weight as 67-74 ; and the rye-crop in bulk as 
65-50, and in weight as 62*64. 
" We thought it would be well to try whether the produce 
obtained on a square metre (39 inches) corresponded with those 
already determined on the plots of one ' are ' each. The four 
plots were cut before our eyes, and the stalks gathered on each 
were tied up and ticketed." 
M. Dailly then states very minutely the extreme care with 
which one-half of each of the four bundles was examined at 
Paris ; the amount of straw, " short stuff," chaff, and grain, the 
number of stalks of corn and stems of weeds, and the number of 
grains required to fill a small measure — being carefully recorded. 
This second trial, reduced to the same standard, gave results as 
follows :— 
* The wheat field, 37^ acres, had received 20 tons per acre of farm-yard manure, 
according to the custom in Champagne. The rye, also 37^ acres, followed a 
wheat-crop, no manure at all had been applied. 
T 2 
