6 REPORT OF THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH 



With this aim in view various experiments are being tried 

 at Pusa. Many enquiries are leceived for pure bred birds 

 and for eggs for hatching. The farms in several provinces 

 have been supplied with birds, and large orders are being 

 booked from private individuals, chiefly in Madras and 

 Burma Some of the pure and cross breeds reared at Pusa 

 are being tried experimentally in the hills to determine 

 how they stand the climate. 



Botany. — Mr. Howard has done a great deal of useful 

 work for the agriculture and horticulture of India. 



He continued to be in charge of his section at Pusa 

 except when he was on leave for six months from August 

 8th, 1907, to February 8th, 1908, when Mr. R. J. D. 

 Graham, Supernumerary Economic Botanist, carried on the 

 work of the section. 



The most important work done by Mr. Howard during 

 the period under report is in relation to wheat. He has 

 nearly completed the botanical survey of the wheats of 

 India. The results are given in the first section of his 

 book. Monograph on Indian Wheats, now in the press. 

 Samples of wheat were sent to Mr. Humphries in England 

 for milling and baking tests, the results of which are pub- 

 lished in a bulletin. At Pusa several promising wheats have 

 been isolated by selection and are now being tested for 

 yield, agricultural characters and grain qualities. 



The plant-breeding work in wheat is now being con- 

 ducted on a fairly large scale, and the separate cultures, 

 many hundreds in number, extend over several acres. 

 The main objects of this hybridization work are to im- 

 prove the grain, straw and rust resistance of the Indian 

 wheats. Considerable progress has been made in the in- 

 vestigation into the influence of soil, climate and moisture 

 on the character of the grain in wheat. 



Fruit cultivation on an extensive scale has been success- 

 fully established. Most of the fruit trees are coming into 

 bearing. The fruit experiments at Pusa have already 



