DISCOVERY OF MARQUIS WHEAT 1V9 



the yearly toll taken by Yellow Stripe Rust (a disease not 

 occurring in Canada) has been reduced by the breeding of 

 a rust-resistant wheat by Professor E. H. Biff en of Cam- 

 bridge University. The new wheat is called Little Joss 

 and originated from a cross between the rust-susceptible 

 Square Head's Master, one of the most widely cultivated 

 English wheats, and a rust-resisting Ghurka wheat from 

 Eussia."*" Professor Biffen's success in obtaining Little 

 Joss was largely due to the fact that his efforts were guided 

 by the light of Mendel's principles of inheritance. These 

 celebrated principles were working out from a study of the 

 effects of crossing varieties of the Eating Pea, in a cloister 

 garden, by Gregor Mendel, a monk, in 1873 ; and their ap- 

 plication by Professor Biffen in the task of producing a 

 rust-resistant wheat suited to English soil, affords an- 

 other remarkable instance of the way in which Pure Sci- 

 ence provides 'Applied Science with her tools. The latest 

 report shows that Biffen's rust-resistant Little Joss is now 

 the chief wheat grown in the Eastern Counties of Eng- 

 land, that it is spreading rapidly over other parts of the 

 country, and that owing to its resistance to Yellow Stripe 

 Rust which attacks other wheats year after year, it has a 

 yield of 40 bushels to the acre instead of 36 as given by 

 Square Head's Master, as the average for a seven-year 

 period in test plots.'* ^ These significant facts have been 

 noted both in the United States and in Canada. At the 

 present time. Professor Stakman, Dr. Hayes and others 

 at the University of Minnesota are engaged in a campaign 

 to breed first-class bread-wheats which are resistant to 

 Black Stem Bust ; and, at the University of Saskatchewan, 



40 R. H. Biffen, Systematized Plant-Breeding, an essay in Science 

 and the JSlation, edited by A. C. Seward, Cambridge, 1917, p. 157. 



4i7bzfZ., pp. 157, 158. Each bushel was 63 lbs. On farms, away 

 from the Experimental Station, Little Joss yielded 5 to 10 per cent. 

 per season more than Square Head's Master. 



