Excerpt from The Illustrated Annual Register of Rural Affairs and Cultivator Almanac for the Year 1869: Containing Practical Suggestions for the Farmer and Horticulturist There are in all hundreds of named varieties of American and foreign origin which have been more or less tested in this country, most of which have proved of no value, and very few equal to the sorts already mention ed. AS the crop is yearly reproduced from seed there is a constant ten deney to a change of character, and hence the importance of continually selecting the best for sowing. There are various modes of making the selection. A good one is to pass through the field just before cutting and select the largest, best and ripest heads; sow the grain from these, and repeat the process annually. Another is to provide a special screen for the fanning mill, which shall allow all the grain to pass through except the largest and plumpest. Another mode is to throw the wheat by hand fuls across the barn floor - the largest grains will be thrown the farthest, and thus separated from the rest. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.