MODERN PLANT-BREEDING METHODS 711 



varieties have been foisted upon the growers, and of all these 

 it is questionable whether half a dozen at the outside will 

 survive the competition of the varieties already in existence. 

 Further than this, the improvements of recent years often fail 

 to stand critical investigation. To take one instance, we are 

 told that the varieties of mangels grown in this country are the 

 finest in the world, and undoubtedly they are, if their shape 

 is to be the criterion of excellence. A recent examination of the 

 crop, however, brings out the startling fact that in the essential 

 respect of feeding value these varieties are now on much 

 the same level as when the crop first came into general 

 cultivation. As in so many cases, the introducers have been 

 concerned far more with the appearance of their exhibits at the 

 agricultural shows than with the really essential features of 

 the roots. In some cases one even has to record that quality 

 is inferior to what it was twenty years ago. 



If, working along the lines laid down for us by Mendel, 

 some knowledge of the inheritance of the features of economic 

 importance could be obtained, it would go a long way to remedy 

 this state of affairs. Mendel's own work provides us with an 

 excellent example showing that such investigations are possible. 

 Amongst other characters, he investigated the inheritance of the 

 time of flowering and the nature of the reserve stores in the seeds 

 of peas. His experiments with wrinkled and round peas are, 

 from the consumer's point of view, with peas of good and 

 indifferent quality, wrinkled seeds in gardening phraseology 

 being marrowfat peas. These experiments show at once that 

 the laws of inheritance do not apply solely to the morphological 

 characters which most observers have been content with tracing, 

 but to physiological characters as well. The researches of late 

 years have made it certain that these are not exceptional cases, 

 and that the breeder can reasonably hope to take such characters 

 into consideration in his efforts to improve our crops. 



With the object of demonstrating the possibility of this, 

 a series of investigations of a highly technical nature have 

 been commenced at the experimental farm of the Cambridge 

 University Department of Agriculture. 



Experiments of this kind demand a certain amount of 

 co-operation, for no plant breeder can be expected to possess 

 that special knowledge of grain which the miller or maltster, for 

 instance, acquires only by years of experience, neither is the 



