PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 233 



or at the best upon the result of practical experience. 

 We are now within sight of the day when a complete 

 system of precise scientific methods will have been 

 elaborated. The time required for the development 

 and application of these methods must chiefly depend 

 upon the apathy or enterprise of those in whose hands 

 rests the means of subsidizing this kind of work, for 

 without proper resources the progress of any such 

 study must of necessity be slower than it would be 

 if properly - equipped establishments were at the 

 disposal of duly trained experimenters receiving an 

 adequate remuneration. 



The practical application of Mendelism cannot be 

 better illustrated than by an account of Prof. 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 Horticultural Society. On that 

 occasion a series of communications upon the subject 

 of cereals culminated in an admirable account given by 

 Prof. 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 



