30 SCIENCE BULLETIN, No. 11. 



The late manager of the Eoma State Farm, Mr. E. Soutter, now devotes 

 himself exclusively to work in cross-fertilising. In all the wheat-growing 

 districts of Queensland, farmers' experiment plots have been established, in 

 which variety tests and manurial trials are carried on. There is also a 

 small model wheat-testing mill in operation under the charge of the chemist, 

 Mr. J. C. Briinnich, on which small parcels of wheat can be milled and the 

 flour tested and baked. 



It will thus be seen that Queensland, though not a wheat State, has not 

 neglected to provide facilities for the improvement of this cereal. Of 

 individual wheat-breeders who have produced wheats of lasting value I am 

 unable to find any record. The names of Dr. Bancroft, Mr. F. M. Bailey 

 (the Queensland Government Botanist), and Mr. Steiger are well known for 

 their work on wheat diseases (particularly rust) in the late seventies and 

 early eighties. Dr. Bancroft in particular imported and tested a great 

 variety of wheats from other countries with the object of acclimatizing 

 them to Queensland conditions, especially in regard to their resistance to 

 disease. 



From the above it will be apparent that a considerable amount of attention 

 is being devoted to wheat improvement in Australia, and that the several 

 State Departments are fully seized with the importance of the subject, and 

 afford ample encouragement to its prosecution. 



The subject of wheat improvement in Australia is so large that I am very 

 conscious of not having been able to do anything like full justice to it. 

 Numbers of improved varieties are brought forward from time to time as the 

 result of selection, and names are often given to them in order to distin- 

 guish them from the original variety. These, however, do not usually enjoy 

 a lasting vogue, and as it would be invidious to mention one or two 

 without mentioning all, I have confined myself to speaking of those varieties 

 that are well established favourites, or which, being the result of scientific 

 selection or cross-breeding, give promise of playing an important part in 

 the future. 



In dealing with a subject in which four or five States are in friendly 

 rivalry, it is not an easy matter to apportion fairly the work done by each, 

 and to avoid giving undue prominence to any particular State or to any 

 special line of work. 



I am conscious that New South Wales bulks rather largely in .the fore- 

 going. If an apology is needed for this it must be found in the fact that I 

 am personally very much better acquainted with what is being done in this 

 State than in the others. Further, New South Wales really has done more 

 than the other States in the matter of wheat improvement. Apart from Mr. 

 Farrer's work, which everyone will admit overshadows that hitherto done 



