BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 103 



The success of the work with this group of wheats and what it means 

 to the country may be summarized as follows: 



(1) The yield is, on an average, one-third to one-half more per acre 

 than that of ordinary varieties on the same farm. 



(2) It is demonstrated that these varieties will grow throughout a 

 belt of the semiarid plains extending fullj^ 100 miles each way from 

 the one hundredth meridian as its median line, a belt within which 

 the cultivation of grains has heretofore been at least a very uncertain 

 industry and in a large portion of the region entirely impossible. A 

 very large area of country is thus made available for profitable crop 

 cultivation which was not heretofore considered to l)e of value except 

 occasionally for stock ranges, which were fast losing their value even 

 for grass production, and all this without the cost of irrigation. 



(3) By bringing the farmers and the manufacturers in close rela- 

 tion with each other the Department has been able to establish a good 

 price for these wheats, which have hitherto been considered by the 

 millers of the country to be almost worthless for milling purposes. 



(4) The amount of this wlieat gi'own last season was not more than 

 75,000 bushels, and probably only two-thirds of that amount. This 

 season, as announced elsewhere in this report, the crop bids fair to 

 reach 1,500,000 bushels, an increase in production of twentyfold in 

 one year. 



(5) As an additional result of the establishment of these wheats, a 

 half dozen or more new macai-oni factories have been established in 

 the last two years — one of these with a capital of S175,000. 



(6) Both chemical and factory tests demonstrate the quality of this 

 wheat, as grown in this country, to be quite equal to that of the same 

 kind of wheat from any other part of the world. 



(7) Heretofore an average of 15,000,000 pounds of foreign macaroni 

 have been imported each year, costing the consumer nearly twice as 

 much as thedon^.estic jsroduct, and solely because the foreign macaroni, 

 being made from durum wheat, is considered to be better than our 

 own. We are now alreadj^ pi-oducing two or three brands of maca- 

 roni from home-grown durum wheat, which is considered by experts 

 to be entirely equal in quality to the foreign product. 



(8) A number of millers who never before thought it could be done 

 are now successfully grinding the durum wheat, and a considerable 

 amount of bread of excellent quality is alreadj" being made from this 

 wheat. 



For other statements concerning these wheats, see the report of the 

 cerealist of the office of Vegetable Pathological and Physiological 

 Investigations. 



Hardier luinter wheats. — Where both winter and spring wheats are 

 grown it is found that as a rule winter wheat produces on an average 

 5 to 10 bushels more per acre than spring wheat on the same farm. 

 But as it is difficult and often impossible, on account of the severity 

 of the winter, to grow winter wheats in the more northern portions of 

 the country, it is the effort of the Department at present to introduce 

 much hardier varieties of winter wheat. This work has already pro- 

 gressed beyond the preliminary stage of testing the varieties on a 

 small scale. Several varieties from northern and eastern Russia are 

 found to be considerably hardier than the Turkey — the hardiest of 

 our winter wheats grown at present. During the coming year further 

 exj^eriments are to be made with these new varieties on a much larger 

 scale. On the strength of jjreliminary experiments and suggestions 



