1919] FIELD CROPS. 235 



the feeding value of a unit of barley, and that on this basis a difference of 

 10 days in sowing caused a reduction in the yield of dry matter corresponding 

 to the value of nearly half of a medium yield of barley. The average yield of 

 roots was also in favor of the earlier plantings. 



The production of stems, and foliage as compared with the yield of roots was 

 much less affected by the time of planting. Both crops produced the largest 

 quantity of stems and leaves from the plantings made IMay 30. 



The heredity of quantitative characters ia wheat, G. F. Fkeeman {Genetics, 

 4 {1919), No. 1, pp. 1-93). — This paper is the first of a series of contributions 

 to the knowledge of the inheritance of quantitative characters in wheat crosses 

 made at the Arizona Experiment Station. The work was begun in 1913 by 

 making a number of reciprocal crosses between an Algerian white macaroni 

 ^^ileat. Algerian red bread wheat, Early Baart, and Sonora. The present paper 

 deals with the date of appearance of the first bead on each plant, the total 

 height of the plants measured in centimeters from the ground to the top of the 

 tallest head, not including beards, and the width of the broadest leaf. The data 

 secured for the parental strains and the Fi, Fs, and Fs generations are presented 

 in tabular form, together with their statistical analysis, fully discussed and 

 summarized in detail for each character. 



In a general summing up the author states that " the Fi of the macaroni- 

 bread wheat crosses developed normally and were in every case equal or 

 superior to the mean of the parents in vegetative vigor, and they were no more 

 Aariable in size characters or time of maturity than were the pure races. We 

 may, therefore, conclude that a single complete set of macaroni wheat characters 

 with a complete single set of bread wheat characters (the maximum of hete- 

 rozygosis between the two varieties) will produce a perfectly normal plant. In 

 the second generation, on the other hand, many of the seeds would not ger- 

 minate and those germinating produced plants differing in vegetative growtli 

 from those which were more vigorous than either parent to such as never got 

 beyond the rosette stage. Moreover, those which made a normal vegetative de- 

 velopment exhibited every degree of sterility from completely sterile plants to 

 those entirely normal in seed production. It would appear, therefore, that these 

 facts alone refute any ide* of blending inheritance, for if blending had takeu 

 place in the Fi, sterile or vegetatively deficient plants would be no more likely 

 to occur in the F- than in the Fi. Hence we are compelled to predicate segrega- 

 tion and recombination in these quantitative characters. There is nothing to 

 indicate even partial blending in any of the factors concerned. 



" In the use of the coefficient of variation as an indication of heterozygosity 

 in hybrids involving quantitative characters, care should be exercised to make 

 due allowance for the fact that races with high means resulting from increased 

 vegetative growth have their variability limited or reduced by the apparent 

 law that size factors are more effective in producing variability in combina- 

 tions tending to produce a result below^ the mean of the hybrid population than 

 in combinations which tend to exceed this mean. The suppression of variability 

 in cultures with high means applies to pure as well as hybrid cultures. It 

 apppears to be a telescoping of variability as the mean approaches the upper 

 physiological limit of growth rate for the species concerned." 



Seed Reporter (U. S. Dept. Agr., Seed Rptr., 2 {1919), No. 12, pp. 8, figs. 6).— 

 Information is presented concerning vegetable seed crop conditions in California 

 and the North Pacific divls'on, the Kentucky blue grass and orchard grass seed 

 outlook, seed dealers' receipts of leading forage crop seeds, wholesale and retail 

 selling prices of 21 kinds of field seeds on May 28, 1919, and on market condi- 

 tions in different sections of the country, together with statistics relating to 



