PEDIGREED BLACK TARTARIAN OATS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2085, 8 February 1894, Page 8

PEDIGREED BLACK TARTARIAN OATS.

Stock-owners are well aware of the beneficial X& fa T, r , e & chlD P effecfcs n ot only of a change of blood, but also of the most careful selection m the grading up of their herds, flocks, and studs. Among owners of the best breeding stocks it is now recognised on all hands aB an axiom that the only royal road to success is not only to have a frequent infusion of fresh blood, but also to select only the best animals for propagation, the inferior stocks being withheld for propagating their own inferior kind. The great natural law expressed in the axiom that "Like produces like" holds good not only in the ammal but in the vegetable kingdom, and crop-growers are beginning to fully realise the fact that there is a pedigree in seeds ]ÜBt as there is in high-class live stock. T °* interest recently manifested by the directors of the Royal and the Highland societies in the notable results which the Messrs Garton, of Newton-le-Willows, have obtained from the cross fertilising of different varieties of grain is only .an indication of the widespread interest now manifested by every intelligeat agriculturist m the evolution of cereals' which shall be ot the most superior order alike as regardß productiveness and quality of grain. AmoDg others who have made a name for themselves in the selection and propagation of pedigreed seeds atronfc rank place must be assigned to Mr George Dods, of Hedderwick, D unbar, who has long made the production of pedigreed seeds a specialty, in which he has commanded a remarkable degree of success. Some few weeks ago we called attention to his outstanding success with his Windsor Forest wheat, which for aeveral weeks topped the Edinburgh and Haddington markets at 40s per quarter, and won for him the first prize m the red wheat section at the Haddington show, nearly his whole crop of that variety being readily sold for seeding purposes at the uniform price of 40s per quarter. Mr Dods has long made a specialty of selecting and propagating black Tartarian oats of the very best quality. His crops of Tartarian oats are all most carefully examined just as they begin to ripen, and any inferior ears or " sporting" stocks are pruned off before the ripening process is far advanced. By way of ensuring also that the selected Tartarian seed Bhall be kept absolutely free from seeds of '•« alien bloodT" Mr Dods keeps his own mill at Hedderwick solely for the threshing out of this variety, all the other gram crops on the farm being threshed by travelling mills. The seed is thus nob only "hand-waled" and produced from the very best stockß, but it has the further advantage of being grown on one of the earliest farms in Bast Lothian, bo that, when sown in later districts, it ripens much earlier than seeds grown m later districts, and that is an advantage which ever farmer can appreciate to the „ ■? way of Bec unng a change of seed, "and infusion of fresh blood," as ib might rightly enough be called, Mr Dods frequently grows some carefully-selected Tartarian oatßon other high-lying inland farms in East Lothian : and these crops, after being "hand- waled" in the same careful way as those at Hedderwick, are driven home to Hedderwick to be threshed with his own mill, bo as to absolutely prevent the possibility of any "foreign" seeds getting mixed up with them. Mr Dods is presently publishing a handbook on the subject, an advance proof of which he has forwarded to us. In this handbook he deals at some length with the advantages of change of seed and pedigree in seeds; and he also reproduces numerous letters received from leading agriculturists not only in Great Britain, but also in Canada and on the Continent, all of whom testify to the satisfaction they |have derived from the use of the Tartarian oats supplied by him.— North British Agriculturist.