216 MENDELISM 



if properly-equipped establishments were at the 

 disposal of duely-trained experimenters receiving an 

 adequate remuneration. 



The practical application of Mendelism cannot be 

 better illustrated than by an account of Mr. R. H. 

 Biffen's work upon the improvement of cereals, particu- 

 larly of wheat work which exhibits an extraordinary 

 contrast in point of scientific exactness with everything 

 of the kind which has been previously undertaken. 

 This contrast was remarkably displayed at one of the 

 morning sessions of the recent International Congress 

 on Hybridization and Plant Breeding, held under the 

 auspices of the Royal Horticultuial Society. On that 

 occasion a series of communications upon the subject 

 of cereals culminated in an admirable account given 

 by Mr. Biffen of the way in which the problems of their 

 improvement have been overcome at the experimental 

 farm of the Cambridge University Department of 

 Agriculture. And it was a gratifying sign of better 

 times to observe the enthusiastic interest with which 

 practical men greeted his communication. 



As a preliminary measure Biffen has worked out the 

 inheritance of a number of comparatively simple 

 characters, many of which have little practical impor- 

 tance. But the fact of their strictly Mendelian beha- 

 viour showed the possibility of readily obtaining any 

 desired combination of them, and at the same time 

 rendered it highly probable that characters of a more 

 practical value to the farmer would prove similarly 

 amenable to the breeder's art. 



Thus Biffen found that the following pairs of 



