20 



WHEAT BREEDING. 



In the breeding of wheats, three chief qualifications have been 

 kept in view, viz. productiveness, earliness and milling and baking 

 qualities. Of the thousands of hybrids that have been produced, 

 none has been retained (for propagation as a bread-making wheat) 

 that lacked these qualifications. Thousands of new kinds of wheat 

 have been bred, most of which were rejected while they were still 

 single plants. Others have been grown in small plots, and others 

 again in larger plots, sometimes for several years. A few of the best 

 have been tried at other farms, and subjected to milling and baking 



Experimental plots at the Central Farm. 



tests also. Altogether about a dozen varieties so far have been 

 introduced to the public, some of these only for special and peculiar 

 conditions. Of these varieties special reference might be made to 

 four which are now well known and are valuable to farmers who 

 cannot ripen the old standard varieties Red Fife and White Fife. 

 These four wheats are all Fife crosses. Three of them are of similar 

 parentage and fall into one group, viz. : Preston, Stanley and Huron. 

 These three varieties differ in certain respects, but are all of a 

 vigorous and productive habit and early in ripening. Preston and 



