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(called also Indian millet and Guinea corn, and spelled in various ways, as dura," "dhura," "doura "); canary grass, Phalaris, and a few other species belonging to the grasses. In addition to these botanical cereals are the buckwheats, which, for convenience in this report, are classed among the true cereals. They belong to the genus Polygonum, two species of which are cultivated in this country, and perhaps others elsewhere. Several species belonging to the genus Chenopodium have been cultivated in various parts of the world, particularly in India and central Asia, but none are of importance to European nations as grains. Of a considerable list that might be made, wheat, rice, and Indian corn are the first three in importance; oats, barley, and rye next; then durra, the millets, and buckwheats next; all the remainder being of insignificant importance to the world at large.

However defined and classified, and however used, all the cereals are agricultural grains, all are starchy, all are breadstuffs, and all are annual plants.

Being annuals, they are adapted to almost universal cultivation where the summer climate admits, for "an annual plant may be said to belong to no country in particular, because it completes its existence during the summer months, and in every part of the world there is a summer."

This fact underlies the agricultural importance of the cereals. Every gardener knows that annuals may be brought from almost any country and be made to flourish in cultivation in any other country in which they can complete their life in one summer, and that, even if the summer is too short, varieties may be produced by art which will mature quicker, and then their cultivation may be extended to climates unlike that of their original home. This may be continued up to certain limits set by nature for each species, which limits can be determined only by experiment. Not so with perennials. They must have not only a favorable summer climate, but also a favorable winter climate and a favorable average climate, and, moreover, be able to stand occasional wide deviations from the average climate. The exceptional heat of one year or cold of another, a too wet season or a too dry one, may kill the tree or perennial which has lived and thrived for many years. Hence all perennials are restricted in their growth to very much narrower limits than annuals. Moreover, annual plants are believed to be much more variable under different external conditions than perennials are. They vary more in nature, and it is among the cultivated annual species that we have the widest variation known to science. They can adapt themselves more readily to changes of soil, climate, and other variable conditions than perennials. Thus it is that the plains of Dakota and Manitoba, with their genial summers and fertile soil, even though the winters be of Arctic severity, and California, with its rainless summer, but genial winter, can alike send wheat to the mild-wintered and moist-summered British islands.

Illustrating the first point regarding excellence of seed, both as to its actual condition and its pedigree, there are numerous illustrations recorded; but the famous experiments of Mr. Frederick Hallett, of Brighton, England, may be taken as a good illustration. The experiments were planned with so much intelligence, conducted with such

patience and care, were so profitable in their results the essential results have been confirmed in so many other ways and by so many practical men-that they are worthy of being quoted in this connection.

He began with a single head of wheat, chosen irrespective of size or vigor, but of a variety producing a good quality of grain. The head was 43 inches long and had 47 grains, which were carefully planted in rows, 1 grain in a place, 12 inches apart each way. At harvest the plants were carefully compared, and the one with the largest number of heads was chosen, and the grains from the best head of this best plant were planted the next year in the same way; and this was continued year after year, choosing each time for seed the best head from the most prolific plant. At the first harvest the best plant bore 10 heads, at the second 22, at the third 39, at the fourth 52, the best head of which was 83 inches long and bore 123 grains. (Jour. Roy. Agr. Soc., Vol. XXII, p. 371, and plate.)

This was the origin of the famous " Pedigree wheat." Later, and in a similar way, he made the varieties of "Pedigree oats and "Pedigree barley," all very prolific, and each becoming famous. He gave the name "Pedigree" to these varieties because his process was precisely analogous to that of improving live stock by breeding to points and strengthening the heredity of the good points by pedigree. Still later he gave his riper conclusions (Trans. Brit. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1869, p. 113) drawn from his long series of experiments, in substance as follows: That every fully developed plant, whether of wheat, oats, or barley, has one ear superior in reproductive power to any of the others on the plant; that every such plant has one grain more productive than any other, and that this best grain grows on the best ear; that the superior vigor of this grain is transmissible to its progeny; that by selection this superiority is accumulated; that the improvement is at first very rapid, but that in successive years it gradually grows less; that an improved type is the result, and that by careful selection the improvement can be kept up. Another paper on his pedigree system, read before the Farmers' Club at Birmingham in 1874, giving many interesting facts, is republished in substance in the monthly reports of the United States Department of Agriculture for August and September, 1874, page 381.

The practical fact underlying this relates to selection. “Natural selection" is undoubtedly the principle by which species are preserved, whether it accounts for their origin or not, and artificial selection of seed is the only method by which any variety of grain can be improved or even maintained. Without it the variety always either runs out or changes; how rapidly this takes place depends upon various circumstances.

It is unnecessary to multiply further proofs, because all experiment points the same way, and the law is universally recognized. I have merely cited a few out of many scientific experiments. The principle is never denied; it is simply too often neglected in practice. In this connection it is well to remember that it is easier to deteriorate a crop by using bad seed, or even by simply neglecting the selection of the good, than it is to improve an already good variety; the downhill road is the easiest traveled. The selection of seed to keep up the vigor and the fruitfulness of the varieties cultivated are more

important than fertility of the soil as factors in permanent grain growing. The matter of soil exhaustion is so well known that it is the staple argument with the majority of popular writers and speakers on agriculture; but, so far as I have personally seen or have been able to learn from the observations or the experience of others, in every locality in this country where wheat growing has suddenly risen to large figures the quality and the yield have diminished more rapidly from carelessness in the selection of the seed and in the care of the crop than from mere soil exhaustion.

While there is no absolute proof that any variety of cereal has ever originated in a "sport," nevertheless the indications are that some have so originated. The new variety of Bamia cotton originated in a single plant, entirely unlike its fellows, found in a cotton field in the Nile Valley in 1873, and the variety has already nearly revolutionized cotton culture in Egypt. (McCoan, Egypt as it Is, p. 187, and Kew Rept. for 1877, p. 26, fig. 7.) Cotton is propagated from the seed as the cereals are, but the plant being a more conspicuous one, a sport would be more liable to be noticed. A single cereal plant, unlike its fellows, in a great field of grain would be gathered unnoticed unless some very unusual accident secured its preservation.

It is well known, however, that many varieties of grain have originated in some single plant differing from its fellows found growing in some exceptional place, but how that plant acquired its special characters, whether suddenly, as sports do, or not, we have no knowledge. We simply and only know that here and there some single plant has been found that represents to us a new variety ready made, and varieties have been perpetuated from such plants which have grown true to the seed and which have been valuable and enduring. The variety of oats known as "potato oats" is said to have originated in a single plant found growing in a potato patch (hence the name) in Cumberland, England, in 1778 (Allen, New America Farm Book, p. 163), or, as some say, in 1789 (Stephen's Farmers' Guide, I, 449). This variety, after nearly a hundred years' existence, is still one of the best and brings, it is said, the highest price in the English markets. Its excellence has been proved throughout Europe and entirely across the continent of America, for it is in common cultivation from Maine to Oregon and Washington.

The Clawson wheat originated in a single plant found growing by a stump in the State of New York. Darwin says that the Fenton wheat was found growing on a pile of detritus in a quarry in England. The Chidham wheat originated from an ear found growing in a hedge in the same country, and numerous other examples are recorded in the agricultural literature of this century. It is only fair to say, however, that many varieties of such origin have been rejected on trial as of no value, just as numerous varieties of seedling apples and potatoes are rejected. It is only the few that are actual improvements on what we had before. In ornamental and other garden plants the tendency to "sport" is much increased by crossing varieties, and this is probably also true of all classes of cultivated plants.

Using seed which has been grown in some other locality, or, as farmers say, 66 a change of seed," has been practiced by grain growers in all ages; and that this is very often attended with an increase of

crop has been proved by the experience of centuries. Sometimes this change of seed means bringing in a variety previously cultivated there by bringing it from some other place more or less distant.

To illustrate: Potatoes grow well as far south as Louisiana, the Bermudas, and other warm climates, if the seed is yearly brought from a cooler region. The same fact is true of peas, and there are large importations of seed peas from Canada to the United States every year. Most garden vegetables behave in a similar way, and on this fact the modern business of growing garden seeds is largely founded. In Connecticut, onion seed is imported from Tripoli. The first crop grown from this seed is of such excellent quality that the trouble and expense of the importation are justified; but if the cultivation is continued from seed produced by the American crop, in a few years the onions degenerate to the size of acorns. The constant sending of the seeds of squashes and other garden vines from the New England States and other places east of the Appalachians to the fertile prairie soils of the West is another familiar illustration, and similar facts have been observed all over the world. Melon seeds from Tibet are taken every year to Kashmir, and produce fine fruit weighing from 4 to 10 pounds; but vines growing from the seed of melons produced thus in Kashmir yield the next year fruit weighing but 2 or 3 pounds. Seed of the sea-island cotton have been carried to every cotton-producing country of the world, but the variety rapidly degenerates in every place yet tried distant from its original home, and if the excellency of the fiber is kept up elsewhere it is only done by the use of fresh seed.

Now, it often happens that such a variety, specially prepared for a region by a long process of adaptation, may be better suited to it than any new one, and in such cases no increase of crop follows a change of seed. For example, heavy oats taken from the cool, moist climates of Canada or northern Europe, used as seed in the northern or middle United States, usually produce at first a crop weighing more per bushel than that produced from home-grown seed. But in various places, notably so on Long Island, where special varieties have long been grown from seed carefully selected as to weight until this weight reaches that which is produced from foreign seed, no increase of weight is obtained by any change of seed. This appears to be the case in several localities reported. Another example to the point is in the local varieties of corn sometimes cultivated on farms in New England and the Middle States. Where a single variety has been cultivated for a man's lifetime in the same neighborhood, or even on the same farm each year, the seed having been carefully selected and prepared until no further improvement is reached by such selection, here it often happens that such home-bred local variety yields better than any variety introduced from without. But it also happens that, having been so long purely bred, it is of especial value in mixed planting, as already described.

COTTON.

H. Hammond, in his report to E. W. Hilgard on the cotton production of the State of South Carolina (Tenth Census U. S., 1880, Vol. VI, p. 475), says:

In a handful of ordinary cotton seed three varieties may often be recognized, presenting well-marked differences. The largest of these is covered with a green down; another smaller and much more numerous seed is covered with a white or grayish down; the third variety is naked, smooth, and black. It may not be possible to say whether these three sorts of seeds correspond to three classes under which the numerous varieties of cotton are arranged. These are, first, the "green seed,' corresponding with the Gossypium hirsutum, or shrub cotton, attaining a height of from 10 to 12 feet, a native of Mexico, and varying as an annual, biennial, or perennial, according to the climate in which it is grown; second, the "white seed," corresponding with the Gossypium herbaceum, or herbaceous cotton, an annual, attaining a height of 2 feet, native of the Coromandel coast and the Nilgherries; third, the "black seed," corresponding with Gossypium arboreum, or tree cotton, a native of the Indian peninsula, but attaining a height of 100 feet on the Guinea coast, and producing a silky cotton. The black seed, however, is not distinguishable from the seed of the long-staple or sea-island cotton.

HISTORY OF THE LONG-STAPLE COTTON.

It would be a matter of much interest to determine the origin and history of the varieties of cotton now in cultivation. The difficulties of doing this are much increased by the very wide geographical range occupied by the plant. The earliest explorers, Columbus, Magellan, Drake, Captain Cook, and others, seem to have found it almost everywhere in the broad belt extending from the equator to 30° south and to 40° and 45° north latitude, where it now grows. Although it is not found among those oldest of vestments, the wrappings of Egyptian mummies, its use was known to man in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and the outlying islands of the sea in the remote past, far beyond the historic age. Its very name itself bears evidence to this, occurring, as it does, in many and in the most ancient languages.

Nevertheless nothing can show more clearly the importance of tracing and understanding the history of plants under cultivation than the variation and improvements in black seed cotton since its introduction on the Carolina coast. It is known that the first bale of long-staple cotton, exported from America in 1788, was grown on St. Simons Island, Georgia, by a Mr. Bissell, from seed that came from either the Bahamas or the Barbadoes Islands." Singularly enough, the authorities leave this matter in doubt, the Hon. William Elliott saying it came from Anguilla, one of the Bahamas, and Signor Filippo Partatori (Florence, 1866), saying it came from Cat Island, one of the Barbadoes." But as Anguilla is one of the Barbadoes" and Cat Island one of the Bahamas it would seem difficult to decide to which group of islands we are indebted for these seed. However, as Mr. Thomas Spalding, of Sapelo Island, says, in a letter to Governor

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