WHEAT 35 



WORK OF THE EXPERIMENT STATION 



Pedigreed, pure bred strains of wheat or other 

 crops are apt to be more or less locally adapted, 

 hence local breeding centers are necessary in 

 order to produce or secure locally adapted, high 

 yielding varieties. The average grain grower 

 may not take the time to make " head-row " tests 

 to improve his seed grain but this work should be 

 carried on at the experiment stations and the 

 pedigreed seed increased and distributed to the 

 farmers, who should grow it separately and keep 

 it pure and sell the crop for seed to their neighbors, 

 thus rapidly increasing and distributing the im- 

 proved seed throughout the community and 

 throughout the state. 



This method of improving our cereal grains 

 depends simply on discovering the great individ- 

 uals which are present in every well-adapted 

 variety, and making them the progenitors of a 

 new or superior strain of that variety. Its practice 

 and application are giving remarkable results. 

 It is particularly valuable for securing rapid im- 

 provement in dry farming crops. The old method 

 of adapting crops to the dry farming conditions 

 by natural selection was too slow because the 

 field-elimination process allowed many of the 

 weaker plants to persist and bear seed each year. 

 The new method discovers the few hardy in- 

 dividuals at once and eliminates the weaker types 

 so that the increase may be only from the hardy, 

 high-producing type. 



