THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 809 
and no doubt the seeds of the oat were brought with the 
manure with which the mangold patch was dressed. 
In the spring of 1852 a plot of two and a half yards square 
was sown with seed which had been kept during the winter, 
a fact which should be carefully noted, as it forms a first and 
most important link in the chain of evidences, and constitut- 
ing what we term a cultivative process, inasmuch as in wild 
growth the seeds are sown as soon as they become ripe. 
The seeds of the first crop came up well, and on ripening, 
towards autumn, the plants were tall and robust ; the grains 
presented a scarcely appreciable difference from the wild 
examples ; if any, there may have been a slight tendency to 
an increased plumpness of grain. 
The seeds of No. 1 were again collected and preserved 
throughout the winter and sown in a patch of similar size, 
but in a different part of the garden in the spring of 1853, 
repeating the process with the successive crops in 1854 and 
1855 with slight alterations from year to year, though in 
some examples the following tendencies seemed from the 
first to be gaining strength in some few of the specimens. 
1st. A gradual decrease in the quantity of hairs on the 
pales. 
2nd. A more tumid grain in which the pales were less 
coarse, and the awn not so strong and rigid and less black 
than in the wild example. 
3rd. A gradual increased development of kernel or flour. 
The seeds of 1855 crop, without selection, were treated in 
the same manner during the winter and were sown in the 
spring of 1856, the resulting crop in August of the same 
year presenting the following curious circumstances : — 
1st. Avena fatua (typical wild oat), with large loose pan- 
icles of flowers, thin hairy florets with a bent awn twisted 
at the base. Five parts of the crop. 
2nd. Avena fatua, var. sativa, with loose panicles of flowers, 
florets quite smooth, tumid with or without straight awns, 
some few examples slightly hairy towards the base. This is 
the potato-oat tribe. Six parts of crop. 
3rd. Avena fatua, var. sativa; panicles, more compact flowers 
inclining to one side, grains more tumid than 2nd, quite 
devoid of hairs, awn straight. These present the type of the 
white Tartarian oat. Twelve parts of the crop. 
Having now procured a crop of separate types of oats from 
the same seed, we preserved them distinct and this year 
carried on our experiments by cultivating a patch of each, 
whilst the plot of 1856 was left with self-sown seeds in order 
that it should again become wild by degeneracy. 
