1879 -] 
Seed-Breeding . 
545 
being individually confined to one locality, has a limit placed 
by its structure and position in respeCt to its environment 
which the animal does not have, and is subject to a different 
order of variation. The animal progeny comes from a dis- 
tinct aCt of the father, and the offspring following this aCt 
have characteristics determined by this and other limited 
systems of parentage ; but the ovules of the plant receive 
fertilisation in general from a large number of parentages, 
and the seed represents, as in animals, both maternal and 
paternal influences. The litter of a sow are brothers and 
sisters ; the kernels of the corn plant are not necessarily 
brothers and sisters, but bear the same maternal influences 
and different paternal influences, and hence have a variation 
in their growth and seeding which is dependent on a different 
species of relationship than in the animal. To illustrate 
these effects we may mention that while in carefully bred 
cattle the variations in the progeny are seldom, if ever, 
sufficient to constitute a new variety, yet Colonel Le Conteur 
relates that in a field of his own wheat, which he considered 
at least as pure as that of any of his neighbours, Professor 
LaGasca, found twenty-three sorts; and he goes on to state 
the variations in the kernels which occupy each head, and 
which implied such variation in growth as to necessitate the 
selection by single kernels in order to perpetuate a variety. 
In our own cornfield, with certainly no other field cultivated 
with a different variety nearer than a mile, on the same ear 
corn-grains of different colour and structure occasionally 
appear, and there is always a certain percentage of ears of 
ten and twelve rows amongst the eight-rowed normal ears 
of the variety. We have in our collection ears of corn with 
kernels of white corn, yellow corn, and sweet corn in juxta- 
position, the male element so overpowering the ovule as to 
give to it this diverse development, and, as we must assume, 
chemically unlike as well. 
We may next remark how much more quickly the influ- 
ence of moisture, of dryness, and of heat, avail to change 
the aspeCt of the growth and the produce of vegetable life 
over animal life. We do know that the character of soil 
has an influence on the cattle grazed thereon, but this 
influence is seldom of a character which admits of ready 
definition ; on the contrary, the size and shape of the plant, 
and even the nature of the product, may be completely 
changed. Thus the hemp plant in India furnishes a resin 
known as churras, which is stimulant and intoxicating, but 
does not produce it when the plant is grown in a temperate 
clime. The ragweed of our fields will mature its seeds and 
VOL. ix. (n.s.) 2 N 
