“PLANT BREEDING IN U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.” 305 
which will tolerate much more “alkali’’ than ordinary plants, and, while 
this line of investigation is not yet completed, it appears to be very 
promising, and we have a good hope that we shall in the end be able to 
bring into cultivation considerable areas of these alkaline lands. These 
experiments are in the hands of Mr. T, H. Kearney, one of Dr. Webber's 
assistants. 
In one instance we have taken advantage of a great natural selection 
occurring in another part of the world. In the middle of the United 
States, from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to within a few hundred 
miles of the Mississippi River, and from Manitoba on the north to Mexico 
on the south, there is an area which used to be known as the great 
American desert, and some part of which was so mapped forty years ago. 
This area, extending westward from the 100th meridian through five degrees 
of longitude, and northward from the Rio Grande through twenty degrees 
of latitude, receives a scanty rainfall, varying from eight to fifteen inches. 
Considerable portions of this great region are well adapted to wheat, so 
far as the soil is concerned, but the climate is too arid. Our spring and 
winter wheats had been tried repeatedly in various parts of this region, but 
always unsuccessfully. ‘There was not enough rainfall to bring them to 
maturity. The bulk of this land was therefore used as a thin pasture or 
left unoccupied. To Mark Alfred Carleton, one of my colleagues, now in 
charge of the cereal investigations of the Department of Agriculture, 
belongs the honour of having made it possible to cultivate wheat on these 
lands. As the result of observations in Russia, it seemed to him that 
the “durum ” wheats (otherwise known as “hard” wheats or ‘‘ macaroni” 
wheats), which are grown so successfully in the semi-arid districts of 
Russia, and which we had never cultivated at all, could be grown in our 
own West, where the soil and climate seemed to be much like those of the 
Russian hard wheat districts. Mr. Carleton was a Western man, and the 
idea so possessed him that he could scarcely think or talk of anything else- 
He travelled and observed extensively in our own West, collected rainfall 
statistics, and made a second trip to Russia. The more he examined into 
the question the more evident it became that here was a great opportunity. 
At his instigation the Department of Agriculture imported numerous 
varieties of durum wheat and tested them in many places in the West, at 
experiment stations and on the lands of private individuals. On the 
whole the trials were an immense success. Some varieties, indeed, 
proved unsatisfactory, but others did remarkably well, proving themselves 
admirably adapted to the conditions on our plains. The result has been 
the westward extension of our wheat belt several hundred miles over 
many degrees of latitude. The wheat growers were enthusiastic. Just 
here, however, unexpected difficulties arose, and Mr. Carleton had to fight 
his battle all over again with the millers. They did not like this new 
wheat ; they would not buy it; they would not grind it. Various were the 
objections raised: It was too hard; it would not make good flour ; to grind 
it required new mills and new machinery. Handling it commercially was 
therefore out of the question. For several years the battle raged. Mr. 
Carleton wrote endless letters, travelled, held conferences, persuaded, 
lectured, wrote for the trade journals, and finally won over the millers as 
he had previously done the farmers. They built new mills or added new 
U 
