PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 



217 



characters, among others, exhibited simple Mendelian 

 phenomena, the one placed first being in each case the 

 dominant : 



Beardless ears. Bearded ears. 



Keeled glumes. Round glumes. 



Felted glumes. Glabrous glumes. 



Red chaff. White chaff. 



Red grain. White grain. 



Thick and hollow stem. Thin and solid stem. 



And so on. In other cases, again, the F l generation 

 showed a character intermediate between those of 

 the parents, and in F 2 there appeared a ratio corre- 

 sponding to A : 2Aa : a. 



Thus when Polish wheat (early) was crossed with 

 Rivet wheat (late), the time of ripening of the F 1 

 generation was intermediate between those of the 

 parents. In F 9 , 103 early, 210 intermediate, and 

 100 late plants, were counted. Time of ripening is, 

 moreover, clearly a character which may be of con- 

 siderable practical importance. 



In further illustration of what can be done from a 

 commercial point of view, we will consider the case 

 of two other characters only rust immunity and 

 ' strength.' 



There is a quality of wheat grains known as strength 

 which is essential for the production of a flour such as 

 can be baked into the kind of loaf which is at present 

 the only one saleable in England. This quality un- 

 fortunately happens to be wanting in all the strains of 

 wheat which it has hitherto been possible to grow at 

 a profit in this country. For this reason imported 

 American and Canadian hard wheats, which contain 



