IMPROVEMENT 0F GRAIN BY SELECTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1494, 27 September 1883, Page 2

IMPROVEMENT 0F GRAIN BY SELECTION.

In the " Popular Science Monthly" July, James Cheeseman has an article on Selection in Grain-growing in which the importance of t-ho subject is well set forth. To illustrate its value, he says the principle of selection bas long been appreciated by etock-breeders, and they have- largely •; • profited- byv-the application-.-Of ' its. teachings, As applied to thg growth of cereals it has not found a wideacceptance, not having' Had timo to force itself.on the attention of thfi average farmer. _ The founder of the practice of aeleoting grain for seed is . Major Hallett, F.L.S., Brighton, Eng. land. In 1861 he planted ten grains of wheat from a variety known as the Bellevue Talavera wheat, which up to that time had been sown as a spring wheat, and was declared to bo quite incapable of withstanding the frost of winter. Nine of the ten plants from these grains were killed by the severe - frost, but the other plant, although from the same ear, remained as healthy iind vigorous as any of the winter varieties of wheat by their side. From, this surviving plant seed has been selected and grown year after year as a . winter wheat. Close observation shows v ' that in the cereals, as throughout nature, no two plants or grains are exactly alike in productive power, and hence that of any two or greater number of grains or plants one is always , superior to all the others, although the superiority can only be ascertained by actual held tests. It may consist jnpeveral particular characteristics: as ,• power to withstand frost, prolificness, size and character of ear, size form', quality and weight of grain, length and stiffness, of straw, powei's of tillering, rapidity of growth, and many others. .•