6 REPORT OF THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH 



5. Botany. — The wheat work continues to absorb a very 

 large portion of the time of this section. The extended 

 trials of the past year go to confirm previous results, and 

 give prominence to the important fact that high yielding 

 power and good grain qualities can be combined in the same 

 plant. Stress is again laid upon the need of good cultiva- 

 tion and the repeated favourable results obtained there- 

 from entirely warrant this. As so much of the wheat ex- 

 ported from India is grown under irrigation it was im- 

 portant to ascertain by experiment whether wheats of good 

 quality and high yielding power could be obtained in the 

 canal districts. This has been done. Extended trials of 

 the Pusa w^heats have been made at Cawnpore and yields 

 of over 2,200 lbs. per acre and in one case of 2,500 lbs. were 

 obtained with a single watering. That is to say it was 

 obtained with one-third of the water usually used by the 

 cultivators in the neighbourhood. As regards quality they 

 were found to possess baking qualities equal, if not superior, 

 to the wheats grown at Pusa without irrigation. Mr. 

 Howard, in this year's report, gives detailed accounts of the 

 results of the extensive trials which were made of his 

 wheats, in the wheat tracts of India, to which reference is 

 invited. Owing to the success of these experiments, a great 

 demand has arisen in various parts of India for the new 

 wheats. Arrangements have, therefore, been made, to grow 

 during the coming season, a large stock of seed, which it is 

 expected will meet all demands. 



Experiments on the influence of the environment on 

 the quality are being continued and extended, with the ob- 

 ject of finding out how far high quality in grain is possible 

 in different wheat tracts. If wheat of good quality such 

 as has been grown at Pusa and Cawnpore could be grown in 

 any of the wheat tracts of India, the fact would be of 

 very great importance, as the Indian wheats of commerce 

 are mostly of poor quality. So fai' wheats grown on such 

 varied soils as the alluvium and tlu^ black cotton soil did 

 not lose their milling and baking qualities. Mr. Howard 

 likewise maintains that in any particular wheat the condi- 



