370 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 
THE INHERITANCE OF AWNS IN WHEAT. 
By Cuarues E. Saunprers, Ph.D., Cerealist, Central Experimental 
Farm, Ottawa, Canada. 
THE great value of a working hypothesis or of some newly discovered law 
of nature as a stimulus to scientific research is generally admitted, and no 
one is likely to question the worth of the discoveries of Mendel or of the 
most important conclusions drawn from them. Nevertheless it is un- 
questionably true that as soon as a new “law” is formulated some 
investigators are unduly influenced by it, and sometimes, perhaps uncon- 
sciously, try to make their observations accord with the law. 
As a Case in point, | may cite the statements made in regard to the 
inheritance of awns in wheat. It has been repeatedly stated by various 
observers, and is now generally accepted withdut question, that when a 
bearded and a beardless wheat are crossed the progeny in the first 
generation are beardless. And we are further told that in the second 
generation 25 per cent. of bearded and 75 per cent. of beardless plants are 
found. All this may be true in some instances, but to set it down as the 
rule is an unwarrantable abuse of the facts. The writer of this paper has 
raised nearly three hundred plants from seeds obtained by crossing 
bearded with beardless wheats. Many different varieties were used in 
making these crosses, but all were spring wheats. In the vast majority 
of cases the heads obtained from the plants of the first generation were 
by no means beardless ; indeed plants which could fairly be called beard- 
less were most exceptional. Other breeders of wheat in America with 
whom the writer has communicated have found similar results. For the 
purposes of this paper a rough classification of the kinds of heads obtained 
by the writer (in the first generation) has been made with the following 
results :— 
More than one quarter bearded. : . 15 per cent. 
One-quarter bearded g A : Pag 33 aces ae 
Nearly beardless_ . ; ; : : 5 PO os 
Beardless : ; 5 ; ‘ Sel eye ie 
As will be seen the majority are classed as “ one-quarter bearded,”’ an 
expression which probably requires no explanation. Those described as 
“more than one-quarter bearded ’’ were usually about one-third to one- 
half bearded. Plants with fully bearded heads were not observed, and 
the number of plants which could fairly be called beardless was very 
small. Almost all the plants were clearly intermediate in type between 
the two parents, showing, therefore, that awns are not to be regarded as - 
a “Mendelian ’’ character, that is to say, they are not necessarily either 
dominant or recessive in the first generation. The accompanying photo- 
graph shows some heads from plants of the first generation from seed 
