BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



to class, his mind on those plots of wheat, trying to 

 decide which were the best and whether any of them were 

 really any better than the wheat the farmers were already 

 growing. 



One good wheat year followed another, but finally a 

 winter came when the Kansas wheat crop did not look so 

 promising. There was little snow, and the cold came 

 early. The wind blew the soil away from the roots. In 

 the spring the worst fears of the farmers were realized. 

 Field after field showed only a sprinkling of green plants, 

 not enough to pay for the harvest. 



At Manhattan everything looked discouraging. Instead 

 of the usual checkerboard, only here and there appeared 

 anything green. The farm foreman wanted to plow up 

 the whole field, for already the weeds were starting to 

 grow where there was no wheat. But in one spot in the 

 field Roberts saw a square that was all green. There could 

 be no weeds in that patch because there were no missing 

 plants. Looking at the label, he knew that this plot had 

 come from a single plant, number P 762. The records showed 

 that P 762 was a head selection from a mixed lot of wheat 

 from Crimea. Perhaps the winters in that part of Russia 

 were as severe as in Kansas, and maybe the winds blew 

 just as hard. Anyway, whatever constituted winter- 

 hardness, this wheat had it. 



The field was left unplowed. The weeds grew in the rest 

 of the field. The students scoffed: "If my father couldn't 

 grow better crops than that, he couldn't afford to send 

 me to this college." But the plants in the one little patch 

 stood proudly erect as if they knew some one were watching 

 them. 



In due time several quarts of plump, red kernels were 

 harvested. Would they make good bread? There was all 

 too little seed for sowing, so none could be spared for 

 baking. But perhaps another year . . . The following year 



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