350 LUTHER BURBANK 



A pest that perpetually threatens our chief 

 food product must surely be so considered, 

 notwithstanding the individual insignificance 

 of its members. 



THE PLANT DEVELOPER TO THE RESCUE 



It is obvious, then, that there is no single task 

 that the plant developer could undertake that 

 would give a larger promise of benefit to man- 

 kind than the task of rendering the cereals im- 

 mune to the attacks of the rust fungus. 



But it is also obvious that the task is one that 

 should be carried out under the auspices of the 

 Government, rather than as an individual effort. 

 Nevertheless, a very notable beginning has been 

 made in the direction of developing immune races 

 of wheat through the efforts of an individual 

 experimenter, who, however, had the backing of 

 a university position and was therefore not under 

 necessity to have his experiments attain com- 

 mercial success. 



The experimenter in question is Professor R. 

 H. Biffen of the Agricultural Department of 

 Cambridge University, England. His experi- 

 ments with wheat constitute by far the most 

 satisfactory investigations in plant development 

 that have been carried out under the guidance 

 of the new Mendelian principles of heredity. 



