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cording to the current usage of most farmers 
and seedsmen, winter wheats and spring wheats 
are restricted in classification to the common 
eared wheats, they may be understood as gener- 
ally distinguished from each other also by the 
winter kinds having both larger grains and more 
straw than the summer kinds, and yet as so 
closely akin or specifically identical that they 
always fuse into each other through their ex- 
treme varieties, and may at any time be con- 
verted into each other by means of persevering 
culture. To distribute the common-eared wheats, 
therefore, into two species under the names of 
Triticum hybernum and Triticum cstivum, we 
regard as wrong, both because it sanctions an 
improper classification of these wheats them- 
selves, and because it withdraws the distinction 
of winter and spring from all other wheats; and 
to group the common-eared wheats into one spe- 
cies, under the name of 7riticum satewum, as Mr. 
Lawson does, we regard as both truer to nature 
and more convenient for practice. A popular 
name or rather synonyme of the common winter 
wheats is Lammas wheats. 
White wheats and red wheats, downy-chaffed 
wheats and smooth-chaffed wheats, are sub- 
groups of the common-eared wheats, and par- 
ticularly of the common winter wheats. The 
difference in colour arises chiefly from the soil, 
—many white wheats becoming gradually darker 
and ultimately red when cultivated on stiff, wet, 
clay lands, and many red wheats becoming gra- 
dually yellow and eventually white when culti- 
vated on rich, light, mellow soils; and the grain 
undergoes the change of colour more rapidly than 
the chaff and the straw,—so that, in the case of 
subvarieties and of specimens which are in the 
actual course of transition from the one extreme 
of colour to another, wheats occur with red grain 
and white chaff or white straw, and wheats also 
occur with white grain and red chaff or red 
straw. Yet the colours have very different de- 
grees of constancy in the case of downy-chaffed 
and smooth -chaffed varieties; and almost all 
stubborn or permanent reds have far thicker and 
coarser skins, a much hardier constitution, and 
a far better adaptation to very stiff and plastic 
soils than either the mutable reds or the whites. 
| “There are two distinctions,” says the author of 
British Husbandry, “which run through every 
species of winter or Lammas wheat, and these 
consist in the colour of the grain, which is either 
white or red; and there are also two general 
| varieties of these, the grain of which may be 
classed as the thick and thin husked, or the 
downy-chaffed and the smooth-chaffed. The 
red wheat, or thick-skinned quality, is usually 
grown upon the strongest clay land, and degen- 
erates slightly when sown upon soils of a lighter 
description. It is of various shades of a reddish 
brown, or deep-yellow tinge, and generally re- 
tains the same hue, whatever may be the quality 
of the ground on which it is produced. The 
WHEAT. 
outer husk is coarse in proportion to the humi- 
dity of the soil, and consequently lowers the va- 
lue of the grain; which, accordingly, bears a 
price in the market of from 12 to 15 and some- 
times 20 per cent. less than fine qualities of the 
white. It is, however, so hardy, and so much 
better adapted to ensure the production of a 
crop on wet and adhesive soils, that it is very 
generally sown on land of that description. On 
fine loams, or soils of that kind which are usually 
considered as good barley-land, the white or 
smooth-chaffed wheat is, however, preferred, from 
the thinness of the husk rendering it more pro- 
fitable to the miller. The downy-chaffed variety 
was formerly in the greatest repute; both from 
its generally producing the whitest and the finest 
flour, and from the grain in consequence of the 
shortness of the straw, and the closeness of the 
ear, being less liable to be shaken out by the 
wind at harvest-time, than the smooth-chaffed 
tribes,—qualities which peculiarly adapt it to 
land of so rich a nature as to endanger the lodg- 
ing of the crop. In consequence, however, as it 
is supposed, of the husk retaining the dew and 
moisture longer than the other sort, it was found 
more liable to be affected by mildew, and to be 
in other respects so much more tender, that it 
has fallen much into disuse; and the thin-chaffed 
wheats are now more generally cultivated, parti- 
cularly throughout Scotland.” 
We shall only notice further the classification 
of the common-eared wheats made by Mr. Law- 
son, under his species of 7riticum sativum. The 
first are varieties generally termed white beard- 
less wheats, having whitish coloured ears or spikes, 
and light coloured grain or seed; and which are 
generally cultivated as winter wheats. Those 
enumerated are common white wheat, Hunter’s 
wheat, Mungoswells wheat, Uxbridge wheat, 
Chiddam wheat, white Essex wheat, Jeffray 
wheat, Gregorian wheat, white golden drop, Ta- 
lavera wheat, white Dantzic wheat, red Dantzic 
wheat, white velvet or woolly-eared wheat, white 
Hungarian wheat, white Flanders wheat, white 
Naples wheat, white Touzelle wheat, and white 
beardless Odessa wheat.—The second are varieties 
generally termed red beardless winter wheats, 
from the reddish colour of their spikes or ears, 
and their being more particularly adapted for . 
winter sowing. Those enumerated are common 
or old red wheat, blood red wheat, golden or red 
Essex wheat, red Kent wheat, Lammas or red 
English wheat, red golden-drop wheat, purple 
stalked golden-drop, white stalked mouse-tail 
red wheat, red-stalked mouse-tail wheat, sulphur- 
coloured wheat, red beardless Caucasian wheat, 
velvet or woolly-eared red beardless wheat, red 
velvet or woolly-eared wheat of Crete, and Hick- 
ling’s red wheat.—The third are white wheats, 
more particularly adapted for spring sowing; 
but which, from having no awns or beards, or 
at least very short ones, belong to the group 
generally termed winter wheats. Those enu- 
