SYSTEMATIZED PLANT BREEDING 



By R. H. BIFFEN, F.R.S. 



Professor of Agricultural Botany in the 

 University of Cambridge 



It is impracticable within the limits of a short 

 essay to give in adequate detail an account of the 

 investigations now carried on in the Plant Breeding 

 Institute attached to the School of Agriculture. 

 All that need be said of them is that they have as 

 their object the improvement of the various crops 

 grown by the farmers of this country. I propose 

 to confine myself to the work carried out with the 

 wheat crop and further to describe only those 

 portions having a direct bearing on the supply of 

 home-grown grain, omitting those of more or less 

 theoretic interest which would only appeal to 

 students of the modern subject of genetics. The 

 work owes its origin primarily to a desire to know 

 whether Mendel's now well-known laws of inheri- 

 tance applied to other plants than the various 

 kinds of peas he used in his experiments. It 

 developed rapidly in directions unforeseen at the 

 time and led, as the sequel will show, into many 

 curious bypaths. Now it has become almost a 



