94 WHEAT PRODUCTION IN NEW ZEALAND 



No reports were asked from growers after the harvest 

 of 1917, as the majority of them had obtained their seed 

 from other farmers and so were not in direct correspon- 

 dence with the College, but general remarks, and the 

 experiments in our own plots show that the strain exhibits 

 no sign of deterioration. 



It is estimated that the result of the whole of the 

 trials shows that College Hunter's is 4 bushels per acre 

 better than the commercial sample. Such a degree of 

 superiority is of great importance as the following con- 

 sideration shows : The average area under wheat 

 during the 10 years before the war was 233,000 acres, 

 and the average price was 3s. 4d. per bushel. Four 

 bushels per acre additional on that area and at that price 

 comes to 150,000. This will be the annual gain to the 

 country if, other things being equal, a similar improve- 

 ment to that achieved in Hunter's is extended to the other 

 commonly grown varieties. Again, on the farm at Lincoln 

 College the yield during the past 10 years has been 45 

 bushels per acre, and in normal times the cost of pro- 

 duction is covered by a return of 36 bushels per acre, 

 leaving 9 bushels per acre as profit. An increase of 4 

 bushels per acre through using better seed represents 

 an increase of only nine per cent, in the yield but 

 an increase of over 44 per cent, in the profits. Small 

 increases in yield are therefore of great importance, and 

 it is to discover and verify even small increases that the 

 elaborate experimental work above detailed becomes 

 necessary. 



7. Further Work in Hand. 



The original selection of the heads of Hunter's in 1910, 

 and the further trials of those selections did not of course 

 complete the work with that variety. It was not con- 

 sidered as proved that a favourable selection had been 

 made until after 5 years of trial, and in the meantime 

 50 new selections were made each year, in case the earliest 



