lso to compare their value. This comparison
ultimately led him to the choice of some few valuable sorts, one of
which, the "Bellevue de Talavera," still holds its place among the
prominent sorts of wheat cultivated in France. This variety seems to be
really a uniform type, a quality very useful under favourable conditions
of cultivation, but which seems to have destroyed its capacity for
further improvement by selection.

The principle of single-ear sowing, with a view to obtain pure and
uniform strains without further selection, has, until a few years ago,
been almost entirely lost sight of. Only a very few agriculturists have
applied it: among these are Patrick Shirreff ("Die Verbesserung der
Getreide-Arten", translated by R. Hesse, Halle, 1880.) in Scotland
and Willet M. Hays ("Wheat, varieties, breeding, cultivation", Univ.
Minnesota, Agricultural Experimental Station, Bull. no. 62, 1899.) in
Minnesota. Patrick Shirreff observed the fact, that in large fields of
cereals, single plants may from time to time be found with larger ears,
which justify the expectation of a far greater yield. In the course of
about twenty-five years he isolated in this way two varieties of wheat
and two of oats. He simply multiplied them as fast as possible, without
any selection, and put them on the market.

Hays was struck by the fact that the yield of wheat in Minnesota was far
beneath that in the neighbouring States. The local varieties were Fife
and Blue Stem. They gave him, on inspection, some better specimens,
"phenomenal yielders" as he called them. These were simply isolated and
propagated, and, after comparison with the parent-variety and with some
other selected strains of less value, were judged to be of sufficient
importance to be tested by cultivation all over the State of Minnesota.
They have since almost supplanted the original types, at least in most
parts of the State, with the result that the total yield of wheat in
Minnesota is said to have been increased by about a million dollars
yearly.

Definite progress in the method of single-ear sowing has, however, been
made only recently. It had been foreshadowed by Patrick Shirreff, who
after the production of the four varieties already mentioned, tried
to carry out his work on a larger scale, by including numerous minor
deviations from the main type. He found by doing so that the chances
of obtaining a better form were sufficiently increased to justify
the trial. But it wa