306 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 
machinery to old mills and accepted the situation. The end is nowhere 
in sight. From small beginnings six or seven years ago the durum wheat 
crop of the United States has increased steadily until last year (1905) it 
amounted to twenty million bushels, and this year to fifty million bushels, 
largely grown on semi-arid land where ordinary wheats will not grow. 
I regard it as one of the most brilliant of our economic achievements. 
In passing it is interesting to note that some of these wheats are also 
very resistant to rust ;* one variety is absolutely resistant. 
Breeding for Greater Productwity, &c.—Dr. Webber has had great 
success in cross-breeding cottons for increased length of fibre and for 
ereater productivity. I have seen upland cottons in his possession which 
had two or three times as great an amount of fruit on them as the ordinary 
varieties, and others in which the fibre was at least one-third longer than 
the ordinary fibre. 
Prof. W. M. Hays, our Assistant-Secretary of Agriculture, is also 
greatly interested in plant breeding. While he was Director of the 
Minnesota Experiment Station he bred wheats very diligently, and among 
other striking results he succeeded in increasing the yield of the best 
strains of “ blue-stem”’ spring wheat, on an average, two to five bushels an 
acre by simple selection. 
Dr. B. T. Galloway, the chief of our Bureau of Plant Industry, has 
also been much interested in the improvement of plants by selection. He 
discovered, some years ago, that by always planting the heaviest radish 
seeds (crops grown under grass) he obtained plants of much greater 
uniformity, and which matured so much more quickly than the ordinary 
radishes that he was able to grow five crops in the time which had 
previously been deyoted to four crops. 
Dr. Galloway and Mr. P. H. Dorsett, now in charge of our introduc- 
tion garden at Chico, California, were at one time greatly interested in 
violet culture on a commercial scale in houses near Washington. During a 
period of four years they selected violets for yield of flowers. When they 
began, the average yield on their plants, which were the ayerage plants of 
the florists, was fifty flowers a plant ; when they ended they had a very 
uniform selected strain which yielded ninety flowers a plant. 
Tor a number of years the Department has been greatly interested in 
increasing the productivity of the maize plant, and has had good success. 
We have shown that by simple selection the yield of maize can be in- 
creased, over large districts, an average of 10 per cent.; and, in isolated 
cases, as much as 20 per cent. These experiments have been in the 
hands of Mr. C. P. Hartley, one of Dr. Webber’s assistants. 
An effort is also being made to improve the quality of the maize kernel 
by increasing the nitrogen content. Several of our State experiment 
stations are also engaged on this problem, I believe. Just what will 
finally come of it I am unable to say ; but, if we could somewhat reduce 
the starch content in the maize kernel, and at the same time increase the 
nitrogen content, we should undoubtedly be able to make it a more 
palatable food product, and would probably be able to sell a good deal 
more of it to European countries than we can do at present. 
* Puccinia graminis, Puccinia Rubigo-vera, 
