Live Stock Breeders' Association. 97 



and yellow leaves, red and yellow fruit, neck and no neck on the 

 fruit. The possible combinations of these three characters that 

 can occur in the second generation of the hybrid are as follows : 



First, we may have either green leaves or yellow leaves. In 

 each of these classes we may have yellow fruit or red fruit, and in 

 each of these subclasses we may have the neck or its absence. This 

 gives eight types. The second generation of the hybrid consisted 

 of these eight types, and of nothing else. Two of these types were 

 like the original parents, the remaining six represented new combi- 

 nations of the characters of the parent varieties. The great value 

 of our third law lies in the fact that by means of it we are able to 

 secure any desired combination of characters that can be found in 

 plants or animals closely enough related to permit of crossing. 



Let us now return to the case of the hybrid wheats mentioned 

 above. In the State of Washington, which is a great wheat grow- 

 ing region, the only wheats the farmers had ever found satisfactory 

 were three varieties of spring wheat. The winter wheats that had 

 been tried would not stand up and would shatter their grain easily. 

 These three varieties of spring wheat were nearly always sown in 

 the fall, because when they did go through the winter they would 

 yield 50 per cent more from fall sowing than from spring sowing; 

 but about every third year they would freeze out. Farmers were 

 eager for a good variety of winter wheat. At the Washington 

 Experiment Station, with which I was connected at the time, we 

 secured a large number of varieties of winter wheat, tested them 

 five years to determine which were best, and then crossed eleven of 

 the best winter varieties with two of these spring varieties, hoping 

 to combine the winter character with the stiff straw and hard chaff 

 of the spring varieties. In this we were completely successful. 

 The Washington State Experiment Station is now growing a large 

 number of these hybrids, having selected out the homozygotes, thus 

 securing new and fixed types of winter wheat eminently adapted to 

 the peculiar climatic and soil conditions of that region. Last year 

 a few of the best of these hybrids were distributed to the farmers. 

 The reports this year indicate that they outyielded all other varie- 

 ties against which they were tested, and the farmers are very en- 

 thusiastic about them. Twelve thousand acres of these wheats have 

 been sown this fall (1908) . Thus, Mendel's law is not simply a play- 

 thing, but is a discovery of fundamental importance. It has al- 

 ready had important applications, and that it will have many 

 others can not be questioned. 



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