[12] The wild forms shed their seeds much more readily than the cultivated ones, and are, besides, earlier in ripening, and thus much of our wild seed had dropped before the other forms were fully ripe; and it much assists experiments in transmutation not to let the seeds with which they are to be carried on become dead ripe. This is another cultivative process.
Spikelet of the Wild Oat.[13]
[13] From Popular Science Review, vol. i. p. 10.
The annexed enlarged [figure] of a bunch of wild oat seeds will sufficiently illustrate the changes necessary to produce the cultivated form.
Under cultivation, which supposes the selection, saving up, and sowing in a prepared bed of our seed, the wild oat seed gradually becomes smooth externally, and its awn less coarse, while internally the grain becomes larger and heavier; so that while the seed of the wild oat would weigh about 15 lb. per bushel, that of a fine sample of white cultivated oat sown on our farm this year weighed as much as 48 lb. per bushel.
Now, the proof of this theory consists in the facts—
1st. That heavy oats degenerate by being cultivated in poor soil.
2nd. By being let go wild, they sink still lower, and gradually assume the external hairs, stiff awns, and poor grain of the wild oat.