FUNGUS RESISTING PLANTS, 383 
DISCUSSION. 
The President: There can, I think, be no doubt that this group of 
papers on cereals has raised the most interesting and important points, 
from a practical and economic point of view, that have come before this 
Conference. 
Mr. Elwes: We have had some admirable papers, and the subject 
is of such great importance that some criticisms should be made. I 
should like to say that I think Mr. Biffen’s paper a most admirable one, 
but I would say (judging from my experience of growing wheat on my 
own land in three wheat-growing counties for thirty years) that the 
complexity of the subject is so extraordinary, that unless an experimenter 
is going to produce what the practical farmer really requires, he may 
waste much time in working for a result which will not have so much 
a practical as a scientific value. Modern milling has made the pro- 
duction of two qualities in wheat—strength and colour —a_ necessity, 
strength meaning the ability to absorb water. As long as water is cheaper 
than wheat the interests of the miller cannot be the interests of the 
consumer. I deny that hard wheat will make better bread from a 
medical or from a chemical point of view, nor from the point of view of 
any consumer who is not saturated with prejudice like the majority of the 
agricultural and other labourers of this country. Old English white 
wheat will make the best bread to be found in the whole world. 
Again, the question of the value of the straw must not be allowed to 
fall out of sight, for the straw is often worth almost as much as the 
wheat. Indeed, I remember the case of a man selling his barley straw at 
£4 a ton, and buying Russian barley at £3 16s. to feed his cattle. And 
so I feel very strongly that experimenters must not ignore the question of 
straw-production. The up-standing power of the straw is also very 
important, and I ask the gentlemen who are working for us in different 
countries always to bear in mind that the farmer would look, not 
so much to some one or other of the points aimed at by these experi- 
ments, but to the sum total of what may be produced, which to him 
is of infinitely more importance than an improvement in one of its 
details, accompanied, as it well may be, by a loss in another. The 
scientific man and the farmer are living and working and trading 
under totally different conditions, and the farmer is not able to 
reproduce the results or to work on the lines which obtain on experi- 
mental farms. 
Professor Hansen said that at the present time there were tens of 
thousands of acres in the States under straw. It was at present of no 
value whatever, and was burnt. 
M. de Vilmorin: In France we try fine white wheat, and it stands 
well; but generally speaking it has a short straw. To expect a fine 
wheat to give a long straw is like trying to make an early variety bear a 
heavy crop. It is not to be done yet. I think the definition of 
“strength” is very vague and difficult, and it has nothing whatever to 
do with the actual chemical composition of the gluten. We should like 
to have a chemical method of finding out the baking qualities. 
