CHAPTER IV. A FIRST COMPARATIVE EXPERIMENT. PERCEIVING that there were so many varieties of wheat of similar external appearance, as even to baffle the experienced eye of Professor La Gasca, who once more obligingly pointed out, several varieties of different colours, which he suspected to be the most productive; I proceeded to put into practice what had occurred to me, to be the only secure mode, to ensure the growth of pure sorts of wheat; namely, to grow them from single grains, or from single ears, and to follow up the plan, by afterwards sowing only the produce of the most productive, so as to form a stock. Hence at the same time, that I grew the sorts selected by the eye, in a field, drilled near other corn, in order to secure them from the birds, thus greatly to improve the purity of my general crops, I adopted the following method to grow the most pure, and farinaceous wheats. The number of grains in the ears, of fourteen sorts, were carefully counted; in the smallest ear, there were twenty-three grains, in the largest seventy-four. The soil intended for their reception was a fine rich E loam, several feet in depth over red clay; a bushel of ashes of sea-weed was spread over the surface, which was dug about the same depth that the plough was intended to turn the furrow, for a wheat crop. The seed having been soaked in strong brine, in separate glasses, was then dried with slacked lime, the drills were made nine inches apart, and the grains were dropped in singly, at about three inches depth, at distances from each other of from three inches, to eleven; the whole being in a square of twenty-two feet, or a perch (Jersey). By referring to the Table at page 19, it should be noticed, that the rows Nos. 15 and 16, which were sown very thick, and rows 17, 18 and 19, which were sown moderately thick, about as much so, as by a drill machine, at the rate of two or three bushels to the acre, appeared above ground on the 24th of December, or in seventeen days; whereas, all the single grains, of every sort, came up two days later. A curious, but satisfactory proof, which experiments repeated since, for the purpose have confirmed, that the grains of wheat, when sown thickly, impart a certain degree of warmth to each other, and to the soil, which hastens their growth two or three days carlier than a single grain. Owing either to the cold, worms, or birds, (though care was taken to watch the corn,) or unknown causes, several of the single grains never came up, as will be |