BREEDING WHEATS FOR ENGLAND, Sie 
EXPERIMENTS ON THE BREEDING OF WHEATS FOR 
ENGLISH CONDITIONS. 
By R. H. Brrren, University Department of Agriculture, 
Cambridge. 
Wirx the rediscovery of Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance the subject of 
plant-breeding was at once placed on a fresh and a practical basis. 
Before this time the improvement of plants by cross-breeding was, as 
Lindley said some fifty years ago, a game of chance, with the odds in 
favour of the plant. Now the breeder has a fair conception of what is 
possible, and can with considerable definiteness plan his experiments so 
that they shall give the result required without leaving much to chance. 
In the future all such work will have to be conducted on the lines which 
Mendel once for all laid out for us, and plant-breeding will become a 
highly specialised subject. 
In the following short account the attempt is made to show how 
Mendelian principles can be applied for the solution of the problems which 
confront those who would attempt to improve any particular crop. The 
case chosen as an example is that of wheat, the crop with which I have 
had more experience than others on which similar experiments are now in 
progress. It may be taken as typical of the researches which will have to 
be made before one can hope for much improvement in other crops. 
At the outset it was necessary to obtain definite information as to 
the directions in which improvements were most needed. Here fortune 
was unusually favourable, for the millers of this country were calling into 
existence a small committee, the ‘‘ Home-Grown Wheat Committee,’ 
which was charged with the task of improving, if possible, our English 
wheats. This committee consists of representative millers, farmers, and 
a chemist, whilst the breeding portion of the subject is in my hands. 
A thorough discussion of the whole problem brought out the following 
facts: Firstly, that the varieties of wheat introduced within the last 
twenty years or so were distinctly inferior, in their capacity to yield good 
bread, to the wheats previously cultivated, and this, in spite of the fact that 
many of these varieties were said by their raisers to be eminently 
suitable for this purpose. Further, even the older varieties were not good 
enough to compete with the wheats imported from Canada, the States, 
parts of Russia, and so on. 
As the natural outcome of this state of affairs, England has ceased to 
grow wheat to the extent which it did in former years, and if it continues, 
more and more wheat land will inevitably go out of cultivation. The 
miller and the baker of to-day have no use for the varieties grown at 
present, save to blend with better wheats. 
Our modern conditions demand the quality found in certain foreign 
varieties and so lacking in our own. In passing, one may note that many 
other crops as we grow them are in a somewhat similar plight. The 
