88 
cially as respects the combined influences of tem- 
perature and moisture — is frequently followed 
by disastrous consequences. Thus, some varieties 
of oats, the Angus, and others, which succeed 
well in most parts of Scotland, do not fill in the 
ear, but shrivel up after blossoming, in the south- 
ern counties of England; and some varieties of 
wheat, such as the woolly-chaffed white sorts, 
which succeed well in Kent and Hssex, rot in 
the ear under the comparative moisture of even 
the climate of Lancashire. Special varieties of 
pease and beans, in particular, require a very 
nice adaptation to both soil and climate; and as 
an example of this, the early varieties of pease, 
in all respects grow and mature well on the hot 
gravelly soils of the south of England, while the 
late grey pea, in the same circumstances, pro- 
duces no pulse and but little haum. Any farmer, 
when settling in a district with whose agricul- 
tural conditions he is not thoroughly acquainted, 
will, for a year or two, do well to select only the 
best seeds which he can find in the immediate 
neighbourhood, contenting himself with merely 
cleaning them from imperfect grains and from 
the seeds of weeds. 
The use of only unmixed, unadulterated, unde- 
generated seeds, is not quite so easy as most 
young farmers might suppose, and vastly more 
important than they are likely to conjecture. 
Many seeds which appear good have naturally 
lost their vitality ; many, especially of the clover 
classes, are, by chemical appliances, doctored from 
a state of rottenness into an appearance of sound- 
ness; many, of almost all sorts, are mixtures of 
good, bad, and indifferent ; many have been pro- 
cured from dwarfish, stunted, or unhealthy 
plants; and many belong to degenerated, ob- 
scure, or worthless varieties. If rape seed have 
not been procured from the strongest and largest 
rooted plants, it will not, even on the best soils 
and under the best treatment, produce a good 
crop. If the seeds of carrots or of mangel-wur- 
zel have been obtained from plants with small, 
deformed roots, they will, in any circumstances, 
produce a poor and sickly growth. If the corn- 
seed of wheat, no matter how plump and good- 
looking in itself, belong to certain unprolific vari- 
eties, it may not yield much more than three- 
fourths or four-fifths of the crop which would 
rise from seed of the choicer varieties. If turnip 
seed be mixed with the seed of other plants of 
the genus Brassica, or have been obtained from 
plants of small roots and degenerate character, 
it will probably produce the merest and most 
wretched apology for a crop. “Five and twenty 
years ago,” said Mr. P. Shirreff in 1828, “the vari- 
ety of turnip cultivated in Hast Lothian, was 
spurious and worthless in the extreme; but since 
its seed has been judiciously propagated, the 
crops of this root have been improved in nutri- 
tious value upwards of three hundred per cent.” 
The propagation of only undegenerated seeds of 
AGRICULTURAL SEEDS. 
the bulk of crops and considerably improve their 
quality, isan improvement which neither destroys 
any existing investment of capital nor involves 
any new expenditure of money or labour, but only 
requires a little attention in the selecting of seeds, 
a little patience in propagating them, and a little 
care in keeping them free from intermixture. 
Mr. Shirreff calculates that, as the result of a few 
years’ practice of this most cheap and easy im- 
provement, the disposable produce of each far- 
mer might probably, on the average, be increased 
nearly ten per cent.; and he adds, “The facility 
of propagating genuine seeds will become mani- 
fest from a statement of my practice. In the 
spring of 1823, a vigorous wheat plant, near the 
centre of a field, was marked out, which pro- | 
These | 
duced 63 ears that yielded 2,473 grains. 
were dibbled in the autumn of the same year; the 
produce of the second and third seasons was sown 
broadcast in the ordinary way; and the fourth | 
harvest put me in possession of nearly forty quar- | 
ters of sound grain. In the spring of this year 
(1828) I planted a fine purple-top Swedish turnip, 
that yielded (exclusive of the seeds picked by 
birds, and those lost in thrashing and cleaning the 
produce) 100,296 grains, a number capable of fur- | 
nishing plants for upwards of five imperial acres. | 
One-tenth of an acre was sown with the produce, 
in the end of July, for a seed crop, part of which 
it is in contemplation to sow for the same pur- 
pose in July 1829. In short, if the produce of 
the turnip in question had been carefully culti- | 
vated to the utmost extent, the third year’s pro- | 
duce of seed would have more than supplied the | 
demand of Great Britain for a season.” 
The power of distinguishing new or special 
varieties of seeds, and of instantly or rapidly 
forming a judgment of their comparative value, | 
is of great importance to any farmer, not only for 
his guidance in selecting seeds by purchase, but | 
for enabling him to detect any desirable new 
varieties which might happen to appear among © 
“Valuable varieties,” remarks | 
his own crops. 
Mr. Bishop in his Casual Botany, “may some- 
times appear to those who have it not in their | 
power to prove them by trial; and if they have, | 
the probability is, that the means to be employed 
require more care, time, and attention than they 
are disposed to bestow on plants the merits of | 
which are doubtful; whereas were such persons 
capable of forming an estimate of the worth of | 
varieties from their appearance, then would they 
use means for their preservation, whenever their 
appearance was found to indicate superiority. 
That this is an attainment of considerable im- 
portance, will be readily allowed; yet that it in 
some cases requires the most strict attention, ap- 
pears from the circumstance of varieties being 
oftentimes valuable, though not conspicuously so. 
Let us suppose, for instance, that in a field of 
wheat there exists a plant, a new variety, having 
two more fertile joints in its spike, and equal to 
the best varieties, while it would greatly increase | the surrounding wheat in every other respect, a 
