Department of Experimental Plant-Breeding. xlix 



the calculated average yield per acre of all hybrids was 56.2 bushels 

 per acre, and of all straight selections 48 bushels per acre. The 

 two years' results averaged, gave for the hybrids a calculated yield 

 cf 53.42 bushels per acre, and for the selections 49.90 bushels per 

 acre. While, thus, the total yield of all of the hybrids tested for the 

 two years was slightly greater than the yield for all of the selec- 

 tions, the difference is not very great. 



A second interesting line of oat breeding work is the experiments 

 in attempting to produce a hardy type of winter oat. In New York, 

 to obtain good crops of oats it is very necessary tliat the crop be 

 sown very early in the spring.. The spring here, however, is very 

 bad as a rule, so that frequently the crop is greatly reduced or 

 ruined by late planting which it is inipossible to avoid. The fall 

 sowing, however, is not attended with such risks, and a variety 

 which could be sown in the fall, the same as winter wheat, would 

 be of great value. 



In the fall of 1907, small plantings were made of seed of the 

 Virginia Gray Winter, a variety which is sown as a winter oat in 

 the south. Seed for these plantings was obtained from Virginia, 

 and also a limited amount from Connecticut which had been grown 

 one year in that State in f^Y^cr^nents conducted by the Department 

 of Agriculture. Plantings have also been made in connection with 

 these experiments of a considerable number of so-called winter 

 \arieties, but the Virginia Gray Winter has thus far proved very 

 much hardier than any of the others. The crop of 1908, while con- 

 siderably injured by freezing, was nevertheless good enough to 

 justify a continuance of the experiments, and from the best of the 

 different types grown that year there were selected 289 good plants 

 for starting individual selection experiments, and bulk seed was 

 also retained for planting larger areas. 



The individual selections were planted in the fall of 1908, one 

 seed being planted in a place following careful breeding methods. 

 There were grown in this way 17,340 plants, which entered the 

 winter in good condition. Some were injured by the winter, but an 

 examination in March showed the plants to be alive and in fair 

 condition. The most severe period, however, is apparently the 

 spring, when there is alternate thawing and freezing, which results 

 in our soils in severe heaving. Out of the 17,340 plants, all were 

 finally killed excepting about half a dozen, and this killing was 

 primarily the result, not of freezing, but oi the heaving of the soil. 

 In the plats which had been sown more thickly with unselected seed, 



