1907.] PLANT BREEDING — PRINCIPLES AND RESULTS. II7 



million to two hundred million dollars a year, this without 

 taking into consideration improvement in quality and food 

 value. 



EXAMPLES OF RESULTS. 



A great deal might be said concerning the benefits which 

 have accrued through the many thousand improved varieties 

 of orchard fruits and garden vegetables ; but this would easily 

 make a volume by itself, and we will leave it to speak briefly of 

 those crops of more general interest which we might designate 

 as farm or field crops. The work in this country leading to 

 the improvement of the field crops has dealt mainly with corn, 

 wheat, potatoes, and tobacco, which, of course, would be ex- 

 pected, owing to their relative importance. Very little work 

 has as yet been done upon oats, although German breeders 

 have been giving it their attention for many years, and one 

 of their breeders, Kirsche, has developed a strain which yields 

 heavily and yet stands up well without lodging. This oat 

 has one fault, a heavy chafif, but it is possible that we might 

 adapt it to this climate and improve this character. 



Rye is another grain of great interest to the Connecticut 

 farmers that has been a monumental success to the German 

 breeders. F. von Lochow of Petkus has succeeded in breeding 

 a rye almost without a fault, which yields in all comparative 

 tests from twenty-five to one hundred per cent, higher than the 

 best of the older varieties. A fact of peculiar interest in von 

 Lochow's breeding work is that he established multiplying 

 fields for increasing his improved seed on different soils and 

 in different climates throughout the Empire in order to adapt 

 different strains of his variety to diverse conditions. 



WHEAT, 



Wheat, while not of present importance to the state of 

 Connecticut, serves to well illustrate what has been ac- 

 complished of late years in this countr3^ The early varieties 

 of wheat that were grown in this country were, of course, of 

 foreign origin, and even yet a number of hardy varieties are 

 being imported from Russia. The greater number of wheats 

 grown in America at present, however, have had their origin 

 in the United States and Canada. The original stocks were 



