730 EXPERIMENT STATION EECOED. 



Winter cereals without irrigation, H. G. ]\Ixtndy { Rhodesia Agr. Jour., 8 

 (19)1), No. .'i, pp. 58.'i-591). — A discussion of the relation of winter cereals to 

 dry farming is followed by a summary of the results obtained from experiments 

 in Rhodesia. 



The protein content of barley kernels, E. Sperling (Landtv. Umschau, 1910, 

 pp. 213-215; afjs. in Jour. Landw., 58 (1910), No. 2, p. 135).— In 3U07 strains o!' 

 varying protein content were selected for sowing in lfK)S, when these variations 

 in protein content appeared to be inherited. In 1909 such inheritance was nol 

 observed, the samples selected for high protein content l>eing lower in this 

 respect than those selected for low protein content. 



Inheritance in maize, E. M. East and H. K. Hayes (Connecticut State Sta. 

 Bui. 167, pp. 5-I42, pis. 25). — This bulletin is strictly technical in character, 

 reporting investigations carried on since 1906 at the Connecticut State Statioii 

 and since the fall of 1909 at the Bussey Institution. 



Earlier work on inheritance in maize and the ability of the corn plant to 

 lend itself to individual analysis by the study of simple characters in carefully 

 controlled pedigree cultures are discussed. The origin of the corn phuit is 

 considered and a description is given of the essential characters of each of the 

 different subtypes. The principal object of the work is to determine whether 

 the different characters under observation all obey the same law of heredity 

 or whether separate principles are involved, and whether characters apparently 

 inherited independently are not sometimes correlated with each other. The 

 questions of the dominance of a character in the first generation of a cross and 

 the purity of extracted homozygotes are also considered. 



A description is given of each of 29 strains used in tlie work and the methods 

 followed are described in detail. 



Among the endosperm characters starchiness was found to be dominant over 

 nonstarchiness. Tabulated data show that in all cases the average number 

 of dominants and the average number of recessives accord with the expected 

 3 : 1 ratio of the Mendelian hypothesis. The dominant homozygotes bred true 

 to the character of starchiness. All of the extracted recessives proved true to 

 nonstarchiness except from the progeny of 1 ear which was nearly so. Taking 

 the starchy and nonstarchy crosses as a whole, the authors consider that the 

 mechanism by which the members of this allelomorphic pair are distributed 

 among the gametes is accurate. 



The physical condition of starch behaves as a plant character affecting the 

 whole ear. When crossing sugar varieties with starchy varieties it was found 

 that starchiness was a separate plant character independent of the physical 

 form in which it exists. Sugar varieties were found that were simply Dents 

 and. Flints which lacked starchiness. 



The results from several crosses of Flint and Dent varieties show definitely 

 that "the characters which give the Flint or Dent appearance to maize are 

 transmitted to the entire ear and not as endosperm characters to the individual 

 seed. They conform to the essential feature of Mendelism by showing segrega- 

 tion, and they are due to the action of more than one transmissible character." 

 The proportion of corneous starch to soft starch depends partially uiwn size and 

 shape of pericarp and upon the number of rows per ear. 



Size characters such as number of rows per ear, height of plant, length of 

 ear, and size of seed are complex in themselves as shown by the numerous 

 varieties grown commercially and by the fact that they respond to environmental 

 stimuli. " For these reasons we do not attempt to analyze our results further 

 than to say that they do show segregation in every case. . . . Therefore we be- 

 lieve that size characters mendelize." 



