PREFACE, 



With the exception of Indian corn, wheat is the most important 

 cereal crop of the United States, and it therefore has been and will 

 continue to be the object of much experimentation. Being- a close- 

 fertilized plant and consequently unable to cross pollinate in nature, 

 wheat naturally maintains stronger hereditary lines than do open- 

 fertilized crops under similar conditions, and therefore the variations 

 that do occur more commonly retain their identity. In other words, 

 wheat under cultural conditions tends to break up into varieties. 

 Unlike many of our horticultural and garden crops, wheat has not up 

 to this time been given the careful comparative study that its impor- 

 tance merits, and consequently the greatest confusion exists in the 

 nomenclature of its varieties. For this reason important conclusions 

 reached in one locality by costly experiments may be wholly misap- 

 plied in another locality. 



It is important to have, as a basis for careful and intelligible experi- 

 mentation with wheat, a correct understanding of variety names, and 

 the important varieties of our American wheats should be carefully 

 described and illustrated. Ordinarily in comparing the varieties of an 

 agricultural plant it is the practice to gather a large series of samples 

 of seed and grow the varieties side by side, making descriptions from 

 the plants thus grown. By such a plan many of the varieties, being 

 subjected to climatic and soil conditions to which they are not adapted, 

 fail to develop their special and proper characteristics, and numerous 

 complications arise. In undertaking the task of recording the charac- 

 ters of wheats, it is deemed advisable first to secure accurate descrip- 

 tions of the varieties as they are found in the regions to which they 

 are best adapted. 



It is believed that the method of description herewith set forth will 

 interest wheat experimenters in this important phase of their work. 

 and lead to the adoption of some arrangement whereby wheat variety 

 names may have a distinctly more definite meaning than at present. 



Frederick V. Coville, 



Botanist. 



Office of Botanical Investigations and Experiments, 



Washington, D. C, May W, 1903. 



5 



