obtained crops of real wheat as good as the generality of those cultivated in his neighbourhood. It was the description of the experiments of M. Fabre, in the _Journal of the Agricultural Society_, which led us to institute independent inquiries, to which end, having purchased some seeds of _Ægilops ovata_, we sowed them in our experimental garden at Cirencester, in a prepared plot of five yards square, on a subsoil of forest marble. From this seeds were selected to carry on the experiments, whilst the mass of the plants in the plot were allowed to seed and come up spontaneously, which it did year after year, and so preserved the original type with which we started. The preserved seeds were sown in fresh plots year by year, but—perhaps owing to the coldness of the soil and the general lower climate of the Cotteswolds—progress was only slow at first; however, in the warm summer of 1859 our plot of the season had made fresh advances, which will be best understood by an examination of the accompanying drawings. Fig. 3 represents a spikelet of the type of _Ægilops ovata_, introduced into our garden in 1855. In this some of the pales have double awns, others single ones. Fig. 4, a spikelet of 1859, modified by cultivation. In this the awns are single. Fig. 5, a spikelet from an ear of bearded wheat. Now, the close affinity of these three forms must strike any one; but we feel justified in concluding that, had not our experiments been peremptorily stopped, and the results, as far as possible, spoiled from the ignorance and jealousy of the new Principal, we should before this have arrived at results much more satisfactory. The principles of the observed changes will be understood by stating the following facts. _a._ _Ægilops ovata_ has a seed of sufficient size to be called a corn grain, and which, though not so large as that of wheat, yet rapidly improves by cultivation, which includes selection. _b._ The _rachis_ (the part on which the spikelets are placed in the wild grass) is exceedingly brittle, so that it readily breaks into bits below each spikelet; this brittleness annually gets less under cultivation. _c._ The wild grass has a trailing habit of growth; but uprightness and a longer culm is at once induced by the closer contact of drilling the seeds in thick rows. _d._ The cultivation of _Ægilops_, and especially subjecting it to rich soil, produces the same kinds of fungoid attacks as are found with wheats under like circumstances, as thus:—_Puccinia graminis_ (mildew) of the leaves and culms; _Uredo rubigo_ (red rust) of the chaff-scales; _Uredo caries_ (smut or bunt) of the grain.