Sir Daniel Hall 123 



work of Luther Burbank, who has tamed wild plants 

 and improved cultivated varieties. Plant-breeders have 

 done an immense amount of good work in evolving 

 new strains of common crops, so that the farmer of the 

 twentieth century has a far wider variety from which to 

 select than had his father. But even more valuable has 

 been the work done in producing varieties of disease- 

 resisting plants. 



' Rust ' is the great foe of the wheat-grower, and it has 

 been reckoned that in the past at least fifteen per cent, of 

 the world's wheat crop was lost through this one disease. 

 The spores travel on the wind and so cross whole conti- 

 nents. Professor Biff en is one of those who have evolved 

 new strains of wheat able to withstand the attacks of 

 rust. He has also produced wheats that are strong in 

 the stalk and therefore not so liable as the older varieties 

 to be ' laid ' by heavy rains. This is important, for at 

 present no farmer dares to fertilize his wheat-fields to the 

 full extent — that is, to get the utmost possible crop — for 

 if he did so the w r heat would grow so tall and the ears 

 would be so heavy that a summer thunderstorm would 

 flatten out the whole field and make harvesting a most 

 costly and difficult matter. 



Australia is now growing large quantities of wheat on 

 land where the rainfall is small and uncertain. There 

 Farrer has bred wheats suitable for these dry conditions. 

 In Canada Dr Charles Saunders has obtained fast-grow- 

 ing, quick-ripening wheats which have added millions to 

 the value of Canadian soil. It is not so long ago that the 

 forty-ninth parallel — that is, the northern limit of the 

 United States — was regarded as the northern limit of 

 the wheat-field. Farmers who started grain-growing in 

 Canada were looked upon as lunatics. 



1 Marquis ' wheat, originated by Dr Saunders, has 

 changed all that, and to-day farmers are growing this 

 particular wheat well above the fifty-third parallel of 



