Later he published his results in a
work on the varieties, peculiarities and classification of wheat (1843),
which though now very rare, has been the basis and origin of the
principle of variety-testing.
The discovery of Lagasca and Le Couteur was [98] of course not
applicable to the wheat of Jersey alone. The common cultivated sorts of
wheat and other grains were mixtures then as they are even now. Improved
varieties are, or at least should be, in most cases pure and uniform,
but ordinary sorts, as a rule, are mixtures. Wheat, barley and oats are
self-fertile and do not mix in the field through cross-pollination.
Every member of the assemblage propagates itself, and is only checked by
its own greater or less adaptation to the given conditions of life.
Rimpau has dealt at large with the phenomenon as it occurs in the
northern and middle parts of Germany. Even Rivett's "Bearded wheat,"
which was introduced from England as a fine improved variety, and has
become widely distributed throughout Germany, cannot keep itself pure.
It is found mingled almost anywhere with the old local varieties, which
it was destined to supplant. Any lot of seed exhibits such impurities,
as I have had the opportunity of observing myself in sowings in the
experimental-garden. But the impurities are only mixtures, and all the
plants of Rivett's "Bearded wheat," which of course constitute the large
majority, are of pure blood.
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