BUEEAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 63 



crop of the country of fully $20,000,000 to $30,000,000. To show how 

 quickly this increase is likely to come about, it may be said that the 

 yield of macaroni wheat for last year, stating it very roughly, was 

 about 75,000 bushels. On the basis of the amount of seed that is 

 known to have been sown this season, the coming crop ought to fur- 

 nish 1,500,000 or 2,000,000 bushels. This amount, however, will not 

 be anywhere near sufficient to meet the demand for macaroni wheat 

 from all quarters. Three or four of our own factories, which are anx- 

 ious to obtain the wheat as soon as possible, would alone be able to 

 consume nearly all of this amount. Already a new macaroni has 

 been put on the market by one of our own factories, and four or five 

 other factories for using durum wheat are contemplated. For the first 

 time regular grades have been established for macaroni wheat by the 

 Minnesota State inspection at Minneapolis. They now have all grades 

 of macaroni wheat — Nos. 1 and 2 and Rejected. 



Winter wheats. — Another problem which has been under considera- 

 tion is the extension westward and northward of the winter wheat 

 area. The establishment of a new crop is made on the basis of two 

 lines of experiments: First, those made directly by the Department 

 or in cooperation with State experiment stations, on a comimratively 

 small scale, which indicate j)articular varieties that we are justified 

 in experimenting with further; second, the trial of a few of the best 

 of these varieties in much larger quantities, witli the cooperation of 

 interested farmers throughout the country. Expei-iments already 

 made in half a dozen different States indicate that four or five of these 

 winter varieties, obtained entirely from east and soutli Russia, are 

 much more hardy than any varieties now grown in this country, and 

 will^admit of the extension of the winter wheat area several hundred 

 miles farther north and some distance farther west than heretofore. 

 On the strength of our experiments with these Russian varieties, 

 15,000 bushels of the Crimean wheat were imported last year by the 

 millers of Oklahoma and Kansas, which wheat appears to have stood 

 the severity of the winter better than the ordinary Turkey wheat. 



PHYSIOLOGICAL LABORATORY, 



The physiological laboratory, forming a part of the organization of the 

 Vegetable Pathological and Physiological Investigations, is in charge 

 of Dr. George T. Moore. The principal problems which have engaged 

 the attention of the men in charge of this work are those connected 

 with nitrogen accumulations in soils and the contamination of water 

 supplies and cress beds by alg?B. In connection with the nitrogen 

 work the following important results have been secured: First, the 

 discovery of the reasons for the failure and consequent abandonment 

 of the German method of pure cultures; second, the discovery and 

 perfection of a new, simple, cheap, and practical method of sending out 

 I3ure cultures so that they will not spoil or deteriorate; third, the dis- 

 covery and perfection of a means of rapidlj'' and enormousl}^ increasing 

 these cultures after they have come into jiossession of the farmer, 

 thus making them much more valuable, while keeijing the cost at a 

 minimum; fourth, the reduction of the number of kinds of specific 

 organisms required for various legumes, making it possible to cross 

 inoculate garden peas with organisms from clover, lupine, pea, etc., 

 which is of immense importance and a long step toward securing a uni- 

 versal oi'ganism good for all leguminous crops; fifth, the perfection 



