The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1867-01-08 00:00:00

agriculture.
pßonsuoß
_BUCKMAN
.21T_ MAID3TONE

FA R 11611.3 CLUB.
cterouts VtOSTAILI PHYSIOLOOT,

The following is a report of the lettere faiely de.lievered
before the 01(111b/T1 of the Maidstone Former.. cub.
by Professor James Buckman; subject 'Vegetable
Physiology," with esperial reference to the development
and cultivation of some of the most important farm crops.
The lecture wee illustrated with a number of drawinp
of roots and Paresis in their wild as well so their eulti-
vated state, the Professor explaining that he had made
it • Wet to sketch almost everything connected with
I farming.
Mr. BOCILNAN, in opening his lecture, said that, as •
farmer himself, he knew very well that his brother
farmers did not like long words. and would express
aurprise If they were called vegetable physiologista ; but
such indeed was the fast, es they possessed • great deal
of scientific information and acted upon such princinla
themselyea, though perhaps they did not always bring
them under system and rule. do vast II IA the subject
before them that evening, thet he felt he could not
even glance at a tenth part of what was comprehended
ender the title; and he would, therefore, °ler rhiefir
to some experiments which had engaged his attention
for a number of years, and which he thought would he
most interesting to every fanner as bushing the 'saliva.
tion of his corn and the growth of the roota—(hear,
bear). Of course, they all knew how difficult it was to
trace the origin of the corn in general. Indeed it was
so difficult to elevate corn from its wild state that •
great number of people had come to the conclusion that
the various cereals were so placed on the ground that
they had nothing else to do but to grow them at once
and mike food whereas the result of his own experience
and observation, and the effect of reseosing, wo dearly
to show that all _lrons were originally wild in their
nature, and many were very dissimilar from the crop
that grow under eultivation. Pis first experiments
with cereals related to wheat, which he was partly in-
duced to make by reading Mr. Fabrs's experi-
ments with egylope—a wild gram growing on the shores
of the Mediterranean, and from which, sitar a few years
caltivation, be succeeded in raising a very good crop.
He (the Professor) tried the egylope at the same time as
he was experimenting with some wild Gala, and the I
result of the trial with the wheat was fully to beer out
lie. Pabre's eiperiments—(hear, hear). Now the reason
he took oats for experimenting upon was this: in many
forts of England there was an impreesion that oats had
• tendency to degenerate Into their wild state, and in
that form remained on land after other crops had been
sown. This opinion prevailed cbielly among farmers,
though ocientifie men thought it was impasible. Well,
to settle this point, be first took wild specimens of oata,
having small grains, which °attained the minutest
;articles of Boor, with stiff beards or awns twisted like
a pork screw, and covered with long brown hairs 'boot-
log up from the base. These he planted in prepared
ground, and his first crop contained fewer awns, and
less strong hairs on the outside, and the skin withal
contained n.ore tour; of thee) be selected the best
samples for seed, and by this means year by year obtained
improved erase, MU at the expiration of eight years
from that wild variety, the sirens became abrogated
altogether, and there were fewer hairs, and the weight
of the flair increased in proportion. Every °creel might
dronee in like manner, and, arguing from this fact, he
came to the conclusion that his friends, the farmers were
right after all, for it was e widen t the ( every cereal, planted
under cireninstanets in which it might grow wilder it
would oertainly degenerate into • wild state. Fatly in his
experiments he also took some black Tartarian oats,
which weighed 341 be. to the bushel, planted them
without manure, and in as wild state as possible, and
the result was, that whilst his wild oats were being
ennobled to the excellence at which they at length
arrived, his Tartarian oats were degenerating in like
proportion. This led to a very important conclusion,
via, that In cultivating oats on poor soils, or heavy
unprepared randy soil, for instance, they would gee lege
corn per bushel in the produce, than is the seed as at
Int put into the ground, and that. if they used poor
used at aS(which also was a bad policy), they ought to
esisel the beet land and the beet climate poss for

Year cultivation. He need hardlyithy this applied
equally to all crops bedsides oste—(hear hear). Two
y. ago he treed another expetrimeut with !Borne
railn
date, this time weighing as coach se 40113 e. to
the bushel. Ile lived he a very good climate, and
novel them oath ea a pines eontelningeiglit acres of
randy loam, which wee not suitable for oat. at all.
his harvest during the fleet year only produced 32 or
Mahe to the bushel. During the past year he bad sown
souse he bul raised from the will variety, and which he
hod entiebled to the weight of fhb.. pr
bushel; theme bad depthented to 471 bi., still ehoe •
Mg a slight dimin•tioo. Thin nein illentreeed the
advisability of sowing as good slid plump grain as
Possible on the best land. Proceeding to speak of 'melee.
ilr. Buckm•n showed two begs, one containing barley
Very loge in the grain, aid the other some very small.
They acre bah of first rate quality, and ft/abed
respectively 51+ •nel gee per quarter. Now the fif-
teen.oe in the "'eight and price wades to the difference
of soil ur-on which they were grown. One wax •n
amble, brasher, and stoney, end the other • fuller's
earth clay. Perhaps be might in add that his land was
very goo I for barley, elevating the grain in quality at
the expense of its size He had been told this year that
a here number of gon'lemtn were buying • very thin
barley for ageing ; but mull, part, WI be did not intend
to now hi. own w/d. he 'lmola buy as heavy and to
stout weed se he Gould, and he should do the s.me with
thing else. He once trie I some vetches, and made
op
hi. mind that the number of small weds 'haul.' tell
against the prairies of the larger end more developed
▪ is more widely then. But the result was very
mu. bin favour of the largely developed seed.. This,
of enures, applied to the pmdoction of animal steak es
as well as to the corn prob.., though other elements
were necessarily introduced In the former. He had
long ben n looking for • parsnip in its wildest tante, and
at length he found one on the bank-elde of • road in the
cat... Ade The laves were towered with hairs, the
✓oot "forked and fingered" and it was so woody that
all the boiling in the world would not make it tender.
It struck him at the time that all these fingers and ton
In the plant indheted dezenersey as mach as anything,
and if • men wished to grow good plants he ought to
lie se careful in hie selection nf seeds es in the selection
of enintsle for breeding purposes; and that, even at the
expense of the sise of the plant, be should piek times
cloth which had the leut tendency to digitation.
Proeeeding in this way to Pelee/ his seed, he found that
in an ineredible short space of time the leaves of his
sill parsnip became broader end smoother, the root
mere "finhy," until in seven or eight year.' time, he
prodneed from it one of the best kinds of parsnips ever
prodnoed ; and as a tent of its qmdity he might mention
that when It wee shown for the first time it gained the
fleet prise at time International Flower and Root Show.
The name he gave to that parsnip we. the "Student,"
out of compliment to bin Male of students, who at that
time toek the esibiest into their especial consideration,
and who assi•ted him in his experiments. As an
Illustration of the evil of a had choice of seed, be trans.
pleaded • very ugly finsered-and•tried specimen, which
he premed from a garden, and placed side by aide with
some of his advanced student variety. The result
was as to the garden variety, there was not
one root amongst the L,t. all
being Angered and toed, and the differer ce between them
and the Student us to goalie, was am 13n1 the former to
36 of the letter—(hw, bear). About 200 yards from
those plant. was an old quarry. in which the quarrymen
Ind set up a garden, and had sown good parsnips, bat
this garden being abandoned, they gradually became
wild, sad they arrived at that state jest es his Student
came to perfection. All this showed the importance of
an acquaintance with those phvisologieel conditions
under which plants advanced in the scale of growth and
weie ennobled to perfection. There were, in fact,
certain cultivative proosmes which were opposed to the
mune of nature in it. wild state; for in nature the used
when ripe, was scattered in bunches, and came up ex-
actly like the parent, if the coonditions were not altered ;
but in the cultivated proems, there with the saving and
careful selection of seed. then • bed was prepared, fol-
lowed by thinning, and work with the hoe, weeding, ha
All ibis was, so to speak, opposed to nature. He had
400 mires of land under eultivation himself, and testified
to the importance of carefully amertaining bow many
seeds per cent, would germinste—m fast which be always
carefully put down in his note-book, together with every
peculiar circumstance counseled with their condole up,
which he used tor futons reference. He strongly re-
commended this plan to farmers, to whom it would be a
positive s ,tirce of ansueement and pleasure' and by this
means they would net only become good enltivetore
thecoselvee but would tenderloin...nee service to theiety.
By attention to those physiological conditions and thd-
Unitive protheses, they had it in their power not only
to make • better style of plants, bet to obtain new
varieties of vast importance and to grow larger crops as
well. The weight of the seed and its germinating power
was imme.teely important, and would be Peen in the
fast that t.king two successive years together they had
often only a half-crop in the amend. although grown
under the same circumstance, as the fine This would
convince them that in purchasing they would do well to
make a point of obtaining twinned seeds. He was glad
loses that seed.men were beaming more earefel on this
Vitt, end be believed that even yet more we wruld
taken if the farmers themselves insisted upon it.
I Referring to the coltivetiou of swede turnips, Mr.
Buckman geld he took a degenerated pleat haying three
bunches of leaves, and distinguiebed by extreme "melds
nese" and forked root. It was about as had a specimen
as he could find, and he put the seed, without any
particular kind of ensnare, by the side of the average
seed grown from • good sample. The rooth from the
melformed seed represented 19 se opposed to 35 front
the seed of the better formed root. This important
I fact convinced him that nine times out of ten when they
I got bed crops, it wes the result of using seed from
degenerate samples. It expleinel the reason of these
; failures of the farmsra who expressed surprise that,
after having immured their fields as well as they could,
they got bad crops in return; hut if they made exper-
iments, and tebulased the result., he felt sore they
I would see it for themselves, and become vegetable
. physiologist+. The Prof...or next referred to mangold
I wurtg -I derived from the Beta emeitiono, and said their
I great object here waste get ea large • bulb and as close
In its outline as they poesibly could. There were many
Muds of beet, and all thees under cultivation formed
, fresh vssieties. Of course, in the cabbage they looked
for" Ileshe leaf. stalks largely developed, and • pro ;
groat, to pet on "vegetable fat." In the mangold
; worts-el, however, all this leaf development was mere
loss, and yet this and a garden beet grown for the I
only were derived from the came parent, but in the
latter the root wan 00i fleshy because root wee not the
object. In *sleeting the seed, they would look for the
respective qualities which they wished to And in the
upgrown produce. He believed the subject of vegetable
physiology, both primal...lly and thenretisally, was one
demanding thereased attention at the present time, and
was productive of the moat satisfactory remelts if applied
to the every-day haslet..e of the farmer's life.
Mr. W. H. 11•IrtgaU, mid he had had twenty years'
experience in the growth and selection of swede turnips
and was very much pleased with the profeseor's remarks
on the subject. But be wished to ask one question.
He distributed his seed among all his friends in the
room from the seine balk, but one or two plants here
and then came out in a most obnoxious form, with a
nasty rough head or top like the rape. He wished the
professor to account for all this. He had noticed toe
pleats degenerate even anger good cultivation, turning
first to • " white fleshy" colour, and if they saved the
seed, it then turned to • ovum cabbage red, notwiths
standing that it was pet in good soil like the rest.
Mr. MiIIDOLAND, jun., said that the professor bad
spoken of "fingers and thee" He begged to observe
that 42 turnips, at least, this was • dimmest._ _

Profeesir 3unataiin said Mr. Bridgland referred to
"anbure." He believed he wax the first to make a
distinction between that disease and the Sneer-and-toe
development, which was another thins &Berths,. The
&seam called the anbury was duo toa little hmeet, but the
term arose from an old English word, for what in
Donetalizre was called • "rising," a sort of compm
and the word WM applied to those tainour,
found on the hack, of cattle when thee sometimes laid
their egp in the skin.
The enntaiwr observed, with reference to Mr.
Marshall's reniarks, that perhaps his friends had not
cultivated deeply or znanured strongly, which mu very
emential for roots

Professor BUCHMAN remarked that this was a very
important subject indeed, sod he thought he must have
!Mown in the course of his lecture the necessity for food
cultivation. He could only aocount for the mosatonal
introduction of the rape-like form in the swedes referred
to from the fact of some few made ratting in from
plants not so perfect as they might be, and that certain
circumstances in the tint had given • greater impetus to
degeneracy. Whatever the crass might be, they most
remember that the swede was a derivative plant—that
there were no wild swede.. It was • hybrid between •
turnip and • cabbage, and rape was • species of the
cabbage, belonging to the genet brassie*. Whilst at
Llandudno, In North Wales, some years ago, he took a
specimen of the wild cabbage from the lirosiMotio of the
(Irma Orris. Flood, which he could hardly mob, and
from which, after experimenting epos it for 12 Or 13
years, he eumeeded is getting some entirely new forme
of brash and curly kinds of cabbage. But, curiously
enough, hit had not yet succeeded in getting any of them
in a pure form. This showed clearly that the rape and
the swede were derived from wild forms, and if be went
over a row of his new cabbies., and cultivated them as
well as he could, one-half would produce breech, and
the other a different kind altogether. They would
have therefore to *elect time after time, as well as they
could, until they got • perfect "breed." Circumstances
would arise even with the best cultivators under which
the plant would have a tendenev to go bsekwards • Map
or two—so to speak—to that form from which it sprang.
It was only in this way that they could account for the
degeneracy which aimetisites attended their best efforts,
and he should be borne out in them remarks by the fast
that those who were mist careful in the selection of
their seed would tee fewer of thaws objectionable fonts
which they weeld otherwise have to sousplitin of.
lir. PAINE wished to ask Mr. Marshall if he supplied
the Need used in Romney Marsh. There were hundreds
of scree in swede turnips, WOW placta very poor how-
ever, in that part of the ROORST, and he supposed pert
of them was raised from Me, Mgnhgjpa seed,
Mr. MARSHALL: Hundreds of acres.
Mr. PAINR remarked that it wan sell by some London
seedemen that they sold "selected" seeds, but he eoeld
hardly suppose that only one firm meld select so many
an to supply its customers with only selected seeds Fie
thought that generally they had very good Ina with
Mr. Marshall's seeds.

Mr. MARSHALL mud that for 22 years he had always
@cleated the best for the purpose he could find. If.
saved the seed, and front Chet seed the plants ought to
be raised. He was quite aware that in Romney Wank
the seed was saved promiemosely, and the people went
six or eight miles to the Up/ands for them, and the eon-
mquenes was that the plant. were not so Wait as they
ought to be.
Mn. Paten, in continuation, mid the; were grown in
the Kern, be believed, for seedarnre. Their friend, Kr.
Pnenett, was mirth:elm, careful in getting selected
seed, and always preferred paying even more money for
larger and better kinds.
Professor BOOKMAN said that reminded hint of
one remark that be wad sorry to make in
regard to root shows, and that was that 0,4061
notice was taken of sins. Now some of the largest were
as degenerate as essay of the steelier roots; in fact,
wherever they were 'larked" aid divided, they ought
to be very carefully exelnded for Putlitetes.
Shape was an important item in ardiZoind
attempt ought to ho made to note the different
act
points at szhibecione, sad numbers ought to be
I tee *be Um ot tbe bulbs, *Nieto( with %stir trelglik

the preportios of the top empanel with the rook
with the weight of the 'stint 'rep might to he ont-
uidared by the judges in making their awards. Len
row be grew BO sores of swedes, sad tem awarded e
prise, the Judrs expreming saiprise that Ist obtained so
!arca a erop-4I WOO to the Aare. TM., h.,1
cup for ratingoids, which arose from his havingoseo,
aeleeted his seed. He could not grow iamb scathe,.
year, for If he did. be would be diverting from the
theory of Oildrative proceasee, sod ...ell he doing et
nalarn dors. In fart, they Ina.t now 1114.1. the ...The
d on the tame soil, or even on the mule farm tee,
often.
Mr. R asked if it were not a fast that when the
ve,en,t wa te,i,fy..rentl• mattered with roost%
piocilted in, the root three out a fibre, ane
fork. If the ground was not very evenly eultieated,
Shin he thought we. poetical,' the c,os with
but if the land was prepared the year before, the erne.
wottld he even and elean.
Profetmor BOOKMAN and that his plan bed always been
to take the farm yard manure an furt at the lend win,
ready for it and plough It In, whoa it
except when be used Mew teekk k, eent
about • foot deep... .7.

Mr. MAISNAI.I. though that at. dnaht was • Rood
pion to mow broadcast. bat the sib** thcy
drilliog sm. to m ski sure of the seed. It caws 'trellis',
So the Mums to grow and get sway from sho gy.
Professor Boommior though numbers a 'thus. er
kill., by contact with soperphosphatos, which was often
attributed to the

Mr. KAILI.O gala they could not by any ainnaat
Cue be °attain that the pop of the apple and the
of the potatoe would produce exactly the
varirtira

--Proietwor Bongo All mid he had no ilogbe t1.0i,,,
they eould continue selecting their reds, they
productc azoofly the mmo variety, but it would miuir_
more than a lifetime to do this. Ho boji,,,,„i that the'
apple would no doubt revert to the °vivito!, bat in
elperiments of this kind be wanted friends at &distant."
who would enable him to obtain a change
and soil. In reply toe farther question, Kr.
observed That the cultist/tire peoestmes included the
keeping seed as well as seleetioig, and sowing at • dif• iter,it time and in different god to the time ~gg
ml
which nature would employ.
Mr. P•twe obeerved (has be knew 40 pla r
ee' her
gam would not pat in an old Mock, but preferred the
tlm offshoots. aid the mom, were generally " teu...
Prelims* : That ie only another coltivatise
prnoseo
This closed the discussion, and • hearty vote of thimb •
cat •ccorded to the Professor, who mil th., be
tr,,eld
be delighted at any time to come before them with any
subject they might 'sprees their dears that he should
'peak upon, and be *asked them very ~.4% f. the
kind reception they bed (ism him, and the m•rkeil
attention paid to the subject of the lecture.