1^4 Bulletin 251. 



the best of his selections, Minnesota No. 169, from a selected mother plant 

 of Haynes' Blue Stem, cultivated for four years (1895-98) at the Minne- 

 sota University farm, and in 1898 at Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and at 

 the Agricultural Experiment Stations in Iowa, South Dakota, and North 

 Dakota, gave an average yield of 24.7 bushels per acre as compared with 

 an average yield of 21.9 bushels per acre by the parent sort, Haynes' 

 Blue Stem, cultivated the same years at the same stations. This is an 

 average increased yield of 2.8 bushels per acre under a very wide di- 

 versity of conditions. The average increase it should further bs noted, 

 is much greater if the yield obtained at the University farm only are 

 considered. Here in 1895, 1896, 1897, and 1898, Minnesota No. 169 

 gave an average yield of 28.3 bushels per acre, while the parent sort the 

 same years averaged only 22.5 bushels per acre, an average increase 

 during four years of 5.8 bushels per acre. The greater yield obtained at 

 the University farm is easily understood when it is remembered that the 

 new strain was selected here and thus was bred to suit the local condi- 

 tions. This emphasizes the necessity of conducting selection experi- 

 ments with the standard races in different localities to obtain strains 

 best adapted to the local conditions. In this regard wheat is no exception 

 to the general rule. It has been found repeatedly with various plants 

 that varieties originated in one locality and adapted to one set of con- 

 ditions, when removed to a dififerent locality where different conditions 

 obtain, mav give indifferent results or fail completely. 



The wc;rk of selection to increase the yield and better adapt wheat 

 to local conditions is simple so that it can readily be carried on by 

 any intelligent grower, and the writer would urge this as a very practical 

 and feasible line of improvement for local growers to undertake. The 

 improvement of quality, increasing of gluten content, and the like, and 

 hybridization experiments require considerable skill and greater facili- 

 ties for testing, and so on, and probably can be successfully carried out 

 only by those who make a specialty of such work. 



Wheat is one of the most important agricultural crops in New York, 

 but is, nevertheless, one in which we seldom find any method of seed 

 improvement in use. About the only method used ordinarily to im- 

 prove the seed is the separation of the plump and heavy seed from the 

 poor, light seed, by some method of screening or by use of air blast 

 separators. What is needed is the adoption generally of some systematic 

 method of breeding which will be simple enough so that it is satisfactory 

 for general use. Wheat is normally self- fertilized, almost no crossing 

 occurring naturally, and it is, therefore, a very easy plant to handle in 

 breeding as the different individuals or plots which are being grown do 

 not require to be jilanted in isolated locations but can be grown together 

 in the same field. 



