seeds and by planting them separately eight inches apart. It corresponded in Dessprèz’s experiments to 600 grains obtained on the average from each grain sown; and one-tenth or one-eleventh part of an acre was sufficient in such case to grow the eight and a half bushels of wheat which are required on the average for the annual bread food per head of a population which would chiefly live on bread.
Prof. Grandeau, Director of the French Station Agronomique de l’Est, has also made, since 1886, experiments on Major Hallett’s method, and he obtained similar results. “In a proper soil,” he wrote, “one single grain of wheat can give as much as fifty stems (and ears), and even more, and thus cover a circle thirteen inches in diameter.”94 But as he seems to know how difficult it often is to convince people of the plainest facts, he published the photographs of separate wheat plants grown in different soils, differently manured, including pure river sand enriched by manure.95 He concluded that under proper treatment 2,000 and even 4,000 grains could be