408 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Dec., 1898. 
SELECTION OF SEED WHEAT. 
Mr. R. W. Dunnam, writing to the Agricultural Gazette, London, says :— 
The selection of the seed-wheat, having in view the improvement of both 
quantity and quality of the crop, must be confined to such varieties as will, 
with proper cultivation and manuring, reach the highest limit of development 
in the locality where they are grown. That there is ample room for improvement 
in the choosing of seed-wheat is evident to anyone at all acquainted with 
agricultural practice, for many wheat-growers—we are aware of the fact from 
constant intercourse with farmers—reserve their worst samples of wheat for 
seed, or sell their good grain, and buy inferior quality for sowing. The great 
inequality we frequently see in the length of the ears of wheat in a field 
indicates the negligence of the farmer in this direction, whereas if in selecting 
his seed he chose the longest ears of wheat in the field, taking care to secure 
the best type of grain, he would at once get rid of the inequality as well as the 
inferior mixtures to be found in all fields sown in the present indiscriminate 
manner. Shrunken or shrivelled wheat is always low in the proportion of its 
starch ; and as the starch forming with the gluten, &c.—the endosperm—is put 
there to sustain and build up the future plant until it can expand its foliage 
‘above ground, it necessarily follows that, if seed wheat is very much shrunken, 
the suppy of food in the endosperm will be inadequate for the needs of the 
young wheat plant. Even provided, therefore, that shrivelled wheat is known 
to be of pedigree stock, and can be bought at a lower price per bushel than the 
best grain, and that a bushel of it will contain a greater number of kernels, 
using it for seed is decidedly not economical, nor can it be profitable to the 
farmer in the end. As the seed is the organ of nourishment to the future 
plant, it will be readily understood how important it is to carefully pick out 
good and prolific seed in order to ensure a full return for the labour expended 
on the land, for “‘ as the seed so the crop.” And although the vegetative power 
of the seed does not consist in the size or plumpness of the grain, as we have 
previously pointed out, it, however, stands to reason that a weak, light, and puny 
kernel cannot produce a strong plant or result in so large a total crop asa 
fully-developed grain. In order to satisfy himself on this question, a Mr. Ronald, 
of Glasgow, quite thirty years ago, purchased some white wheat such as was then 
sold for seed to farmers, and he extracted by means of a sieve with an appropriate 
size of mesh 25 per cent. of the smaller kernels, which he tried numerically 
against the 75 per cent. of the kernels that had not passed through the sieve 
on account of their being larger, with the following results :— 
Large Seeds.—400 produced 316 plants and 1,572 ears, which weighed 
106 oz. 
Small Seeds.—400 produced 256 plants and 606 ears, which weighed 
82 07. 
The weight in both cases included the straw of the ears, and the seed was 
dibbled at the rate of 2 pecks per acre. Aswe have pointed out, the objection 
to a poor sample sown,as seed does not lie in the variety but in the poverty 
of the individual seeds, inasmuch as the seeds are the organ of nourishment to 
the future plant. During recent years many new and valuable varieties have 
been introduced into the seed market, and, in order that our readers may 
readily guage the quality of the wheat that millers require, we would mention 
that the greater the weight per measured bushel the better the quality of the 
wheat or seed, but when farmers are selecting their seed-wheat they must also 
not overlook the matter of vitality or the suitability of the seed to their 
particular soil or climate. Good quality wheat, it will thus be noted, is of high 
specific gravity, and has well-developed grains. 
Since Mr. Ronald’s experiment on seed-wheat many farmers and others 
have made similar trials on a more extensive scale, and in this connection we 
may as well draw our readers’ attention to a trial made by a well-known agri- 
culturist. This gentleman carefully selected from a farm granary a measured 
