12 SCIENCE BULLETIN, No. 11. 



fully in the paper already referred to, and which was originally read before 

 the Congress for Tropical Agriculture at Brussels, 1911, and which is 

 reprinted as Science Bulletin No. 7, issued by the New South Wales Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. 



Mr. G. W. Norris has been exclusively engaged here on this work for 

 some years past, and his results have been of the greatest value, not only to 

 the wheat-breeder, but to all interested in the wheat industry. 



During the past few years small wheat-testing mills have been established 

 by the Agricultural Departments in Victoria, Queensland, and West 

 Australia, and their operations will be dealt with in the succeeding section. 



It is to Mr. Farrer that we owe the most striking successes in the 

 production of wheats of high milling excellence. As has been already pointed 

 put, the improvement of our local wheats in regard to their milling quality 

 "was the aim he kept steadily in view. Many of his most popular wheats, 

 .such as Federation, were crosses between local weak-flour favourites and 

 strong-flour wheats of the Fife family. The Farrer wheats are therefore all 

 distinguished in being good milling wheats, and, in addition, he has created 

 new types of specially high flour-strength, principally by admixture of Fife 

 and Indian blood. These wheats it has been proposed to name " New South 

 [Wales Strong White," or preferably, from my point of view, "Australian 

 Strong White/' This type, represented by wheats like Bobs and Comeback, 

 yield flours equal in strength to any on the market. The result has been 

 that as the Farrer wheats grow in popularity and come more into general 

 cultivation, a marked improvement in the gluten content, flour strength and 

 general milling quality of Australian wheats is becoming apparent. 



Mr. Farrer's immediate successor as wheat-breeder, Mr. G. L. Sutton (now 

 Agricultural Commissioner in Western Australia), took up this work very 

 keenly, and has continued breeding and selecting for milling excellence 

 and flour strength, so that the present strong-flour wheats are better milling 

 wheats to-day than when Mr. Farrer left them. 



Mr. Sutton was also chiefly instrumental in popularising the Farrer wheats, 

 raising pure pedigree seed in large quantities for distribution to farmers. 

 Another result of Mr. Sutton's work as wheat-breeder was that by this 

 means he was able to introduce the best varieties into general cultivation, 

 thus enabling the Department to reduce the number of varieties recom- 

 mended to about twenty (see list on page 17). 



All these varieties, while equally prolific, or even more prolific, than the 

 discarded ones, are greatly superior as milling wheats. 



Mr. Sutton's successor, Mr. J. T. Pridham, who was also a student of 

 ^wheat-breeding under Mr. Farrer, has continued the work, and has been 

 particularly successful, as has been mentioned above, in improving some of 

 the Farrer wheats to suit dry conditions. 



A few of the most popular of these strong-flour wheats may be briefly 

 described in this place. 



