WHEAT-GROWING AND ITS PROBLEMS 3of 



for example, has proved so useful in England that it has 

 displaced many of the older sorts ; Fife, which was found quite 

 by accident, is by much the most valuable of all known wheats 

 for the northern parts of the great plains of North America ; 

 while Crimean or Turkey wheat has proved equally serviceable 

 for the more southern part. 



Newer varieties found at the Experimental Stations have 

 not displaced these sorts from general cultivation but they 

 have proved useful in regions where wheat would not grow 

 before ; thus Dr. W. Saunders and his son, working at Ottawa, 

 have found early maturing strains of Fife and its crosses that 

 promise to ripen farther north than present sorts and there- 

 fore to extend the northern limit of the Canadian wheat belt. 

 Federation, now the standard wheat of South Australia, was 

 bred by the late William Farrer. 



At the present time vigorous attempts are being made to find 

 wheats possessing "strength," heavy cropping power, early 

 maturity, resistance to rust and drought. Two methods are 

 being follov/ed. The problem is being studied by Prof. Biffen 

 at Cambridge on Mendelian lines and the mode of inheritance 

 traced of the various characters involved. Elsewhere careful 

 surveys are being made of the wheats already grown with a 

 view to the isolation and study of pure types ; such of these as 

 possess important advantages over the ordinary varieties in use 

 are carefully propagated, Mr, and Mrs, Howard are studying 

 the Indian wheats in this way and Nilsson at Svalof is similarly 

 improving the Swedish wheats and other crops. Mass selection 

 is of course given up ; the unit for selection has to be a single 

 ear. The process is tedious, because for a complete examination 

 a considerable quantity of flour is wanted, but there, is promise 

 of simplification as it has been discovered that certain readily 

 observed characters are correlated with others more difficult to 

 determine. At Svalof considerable use is made of these correla- 

 tions and much time saved in consequence. 



How far all this work will enable us to exceed our present 

 yields of wheat per acre cannot yet be judged ; it must cer- 

 tainly increase the dimensions of the present wheat belt and 

 give greater certainty to farming practice. It is not too much 

 to say that, when the virgin regions of the world are all 

 inhabited, the total production of wheat will be limited only b}- 

 the limit set to the plant-breeder's work. 



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