12 SCIENCE BULLETIN, No. 22. 



mill they were familiar, and they were in no position to offer encourage- 

 ment to the production of the harder, strong-flour varieties which it was 

 Farrer's object to breed. 



As this type was exactly the one which offered the greatest resistance to 

 rust, the efforts of the Rust-in-Wheat Conference were largely abortive, and 

 the last conference (Melbourne, 1896) had to satisfy itself, in the final 

 report, with classifying the wheats then in general cultivation as " rust- 

 resistant " and ft rust-escaping." 



A list of the varieties then recommended is of interest at the present day, 

 since it will be seen that twenty-five years later hardly one of them is grown 

 to any extent, at least in New South Wales. Probably Marshall's No. 3 is 

 the only one that has retained its popularity, Farrer's wheats or their 

 descendants and selections having replaced the others. 



A. RUST-RESISTANT. Ward's Prolific; Marshall's No. 3j Marshall's No. 8; 

 Australian Wonder ; Robin's Rust-resistant. 



For cooler districts : Blount's Lambrigg ; Pi-ingle's Defiance ; 

 Tunnack ; Smith's Nonpareil. 



For cooler and moister districts : Fife-wheats such as Improved 

 Fife and Hornblende. 



B. RUST-ESCAPING. Allora Spring ; Budd's Early ; Early Para ; Canning 

 Downs R.R. ; Early Baart. 



C. PROLIFIC AND MODERATELY RUST RESISTANT. Talavera ; Leak's ; 

 White Lammas. 



It became, therefore a matter of the first importance to devise a means of 

 obtaining reliable information concerning the milling quality of the small 

 samples of wheat (often not more than a few ounces) which often constituted 

 the entire harvest of Farrer's new wheats after two or three seasons. 



I was fortunate enough to obtain a couple of small rolls, such as were 

 used for grinding small quantities of whole meal, and to succeed, with the 

 cordial help of Mr. R. W. Harris, head miller, Gillespie Bros., Sydney, in 

 devising a method whereby the operations of a large mill could be fairly 

 well imitated. 



Although with this machine we could not hope to obtain a flour of the 

 high-class texture and bloom of millers' flour, we were, nevertheless, able to 

 determine with some degree of accuracy the important points of flour 

 strength, gluten-content, and colour of the flour, as well as the proportion 

 of bran, pollard, and flour obtainable, to bake the flour into loaves and to 

 compare new varieties in these respects. 



This information was exactly what was needed by Farrer to enable him 

 to determine which of his new creations were worth proceeding with, and 

 which of them were valueless. It was therefore possible for him to reject 

 scores of varieties without being obliged to continue breeding them for 

 years until he had obtained, for general distribution, sufficient seed of strains 

 concerning whose milling quality he ' and everybody else would have been 

 quite ignorant. Since that time these toy mills have been improved both here 

 and abroad, and mill-products can now be obtained practically identical 

 with the produce of the large mills. This assistance enabled Farrer to aim 

 consistently at his objective of producing only varieties of high milling 

 quality. The field characteristics, such as ^rust-resistance, suitability to dry 

 conditions, earliness- or lateness, quality of straw, and capacity for holding 

 the grain, &c., he could, of course, study during the plant's growth. 



